


Home/Longing

by antioedipus



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Other, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 82,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24151498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antioedipus/pseuds/antioedipus
Summary: Some things can only be learned in exile.
Relationships: Akimichi Chouji & Nara Shikamaru & Sarutobi Asuma & Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata/Uchiha Sasuke, Sai/Tenten (Naruto)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 68





	1. Jade and a dirty tennis shoe

_“I wanted to see the world/ and then I flew over the ocean/ and then I changed my mind”_

_Phoebe Bridgers, “Kyoto”_

_“We’re still the kids we used to be”_

_070 Shake, “Ghost Town Pt. 1”_

CW: Specific and exclusive to this chapter: graphic depictions of violence, mentions of mental illness, references to genocidal/sexual violence.

1

Picking up the file, Ino looks over her shoulder to make sure no one else is there, even though she would have sensed them by now. All autopsy reports are kept in the basement of the hospital. The room is cold because it shares a heating system with the morgue. Her fingers are a little stiff and from previous experience, she knows her lips are blue.

However, this is her perverse weekly ritual, and she will only let missions interrupt it. Ino opens the file, and as always, the dead, grey face of Asuma looks up at her. His eyes are open and vacant, perfect pools, and his mouth is a little slack. Ino traces his features with her fingers, before she flips the photo over to read the report. It is brief; his injuries were so severe that there was nothing to say, other than that a blood ritual had been the cause.

It is endlessly funny that a reasonable man like Asuma was cut down by a blood ritual. He used to scoff when Ino would read him their horoscope, but it is magic that got him in the end. Ino remembers her horror when she researched the symbolism of red poppies after his death. In the West, they are synonymous with cataclysmic wars, fallen soldiers, entire generations swept away at the whims of a few. It got worse the more she read. Wreaths of red poppies were left at the graves of the soldiers, a token of appreciation for fighting for the freedom of future generations. It is a narrative that makes Ino want to scream. She doesn’t know which is worse: that she unintentionally predicted Asuma’s demise or that no one saw the signs.

After Asuma had died, Shikamaru explained who their sensei referred to as the King. Figures Asuma would only start caring about kids when he was about to become a father. He never put Team Ten in the line of fire but he also never shielded them. Ino bites her lip to offset her resentment. _It was his job to show us the truth of the world_. She flips to the photo of Asuma on the slab. He was tall and broad, and in all honesty he is too big for the table.

His death had changed them all. Shikamaru got a lot of character development out of the whole deal. He had proven that he had far surpassed his potential, and that he was more like Kakashi than Sasuke could dream to be. Chouji had started training even harder, telling Ino that he needed to become stronger for the King.

It made her head hurt, thinking about the King. She could understand why Asuma, Shikamaru and Chouji would become so enthralled. It gave their work meaning, and as long as you are telling yourself that you sacrifice all this for someone, you never have to look at everything you are expected to give up. If you do everything for the King, you never have to think too hard about what you do.

Shikamaru is a genius, but he bought the whole thing hook, line and sinker. She expects this optimism from Chouji, but not him. The two of them were getting their acts together. He is dating Temari, and Chouji is moving in with Karui. Ino flips to a picture of Asuma’s left arm. It is bruised, but no skin is broken. She reminds herself never to recommend red poppies to either of them. They both come into the flower shop more, and they seem so relaxed. Like Asuma’s death helped everything fall into place.

Ino feels the opposite. She is restless, but she doesn’t know what for. Sai is always asking her what is wrong, but Ino doesn’t have any answers. Their relationship makes her feel empty. She tries to feel something else, but there is just nothing there. It should scare her, but she has come to terms with radical non-being, i.e. death, or rather, the annihilation of all other possibilities. That’s it: her relationship with Sai eliminates all other options. There is a certain peace in knowing, after all.

The only time she feels calm is looking at Asuma’s autopsy report. She flips to her favourite picture, the one that soothes her senses; the big hole in his chest. It just features to wound; the viscera and pulp and blood form a void. Or a hole. Ino looks at the picture again, before she puts the file back.

She is drawn to the image. It calls to her, she just hasn’t figured out what it is trying to tell her. The superstitious part of her brain tells her that Asuma is trying to call out to her, but Ino can’t believe that he would bother to get in touch with her and not Shikamaru. Besides, she is content to think that he has stopped existing. She closes the file and tucks it into the drawer.

As she closes the drawer, she feels her father’s chakra come down the hall. She panics a little, but she tells herself to remain calm. The Yamanaka have been bred to sniff out fear. If she allows herself to panic, on the off-chance her father doesn’t know why she is here, he will definitely have questions when he gets to her.

Ino visualizes the hole in Asuma’s chest. It is the thing that has been calling to her for weeks. _What do you want from me?_

She stares at the closed filing cabinet when her father walks into the room. They haven’t really spoken since Asuma’s death. She thinks it is because there is nothing to say, but she could be wrong. She turns to face him, and it strikes her how much older he looks. Like he has aged overnight.

“Daddy.” Ino’s voice is soft, but she looks right at him with a hard stare and closed mouth. Inoichi crosses his arms, tilting his head. She looks just like him when she is about to tell someone that she has no more answers for them.

“Ino.” He nods, but he stands by the door.

“Why are you visiting me at work?” Ino remains expressionless as she turns to pick up the decoy file she always prepares before coming down here. Her father has no scars, no face paint, shadows or expansive body parts, but he is insurmountably scarier than Shikaku or Chouza. Inoichi is always himself, without adornment. It makes him beautiful and horrifying. An archangel of death. How many Asumas had he struck down with his mind alone? The number must be high.

An old Yamanaka tale: there is no life without exchange for life. Why do shinobi have such short lives? Because the more lives you take, the more your own life force is sucked away. Her mother had scolded her when Ino had asked about it. But the more she looks at the way her father is slowly withering away, the story becomes increasingly plausible.

“You haven’t been yourself, Ino.” He looks tired. Ino exhales through her nose; it is an unconscious quirk that she inherited from Asuma. It is how Asuma expressed his worry. _Neither have you, Daddy_.

“How so?”

“You seem bored.” Inoichi clears his throat, “and you spend all your time down here looking at Asuma’s autopsy report.” Ino takes her pit viper stance, the one she makes when confronted with an enemy head on. Once again, this all takes place in her animal hindbrain. Inoichi crosses his arms, waiting for her to say something.

Ino takes a moment to examine herself. Boredom and unprocessed grief are a part of this, but really, if she had to look inside of herself, she is restless.

“It is hard to stay invested when your talents are being wasted.” Ino looks around, “I think I’ve outgrown this place.” Ino looks right at her father, daring him to challenge her. He trained her to be the best she could be. Worse than Asuma dying and watching Shikamaru and Chouji grow up, is the realization that Konoha encourages women to stagnate.

Ino and her father have a set of skills that are unique and sought after, but Ino finds herself using them less and less in her work, until it feels like something is throttling her from within. She wants to go see the world, and the urge is even worse as her teammates free themselves of her to begin their real lives.

Her father looks at her without judgement. He simply nods.

"You are the most gifted Yamanaka, but there are some things you will never learn unless you leave.” Inoichi reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a file. He tosses it to Ino.

“I left the village when I was your age to work at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands,” Inoichi cross his arms again. “I have an old colleague who is working with victims of sexual violence; he seems to think that our jutsu could be helpful with their interviews. He is based in Berlin, Germany. I told him that I would send you. It will feed whatever compels you to look at Asuma’s file.” Inoichi delivers this with a matter-of-fact precision. Ino looks at the file in her hands.

“Is the lesson in the assignment itself, or is it something I am to learn on the way?” Ino asks. Inoichi tilts his head.

“If it goes to plan, a bit of both.” He smiles, “if not—maybe you won’t learn it at all.” He grins, before turning to leave. Ino says nothing, and instead, opens the file.

2

Breaking up with Sai had been easy. Other than him, Ino hadn’t planned on saying good-bye to anyone. Her parents knew she was leaving, and her dad had booked the trip, so if they had wanted to see her they would have made it happen. Ino closes the front door of her parent’s house and she immediately turns forward and squares her shoulders.

She turns over her father’s last words to her. _Some things can only be learned in exile_. Ino took in a breath and walked to the gate. She paused, considering looking back before reminding herself to only look forward. There was nothing for her to do here, except to get married, pregnant and watch everyone remotely cool become mediocre with age. Lame would be a more fitting word, but Ino always liked the word mediocre; it is superior to the meaning it conveys.

Ino is almost down the street, thinking of nothing in particular, when Shikamaru and Chouji come into view. Shikamaru looks indifferent, but she can tell that he is irritated by the way he puffs on a cigarette with his arms crossed, blowing the smoke out of the other corner of his mouth. Chouji, hands fidgeting, is biting his lip the way he does when he is anxious. Ino considers trying to go around them, but their eyes are locked on hers. She purses her lips and slows her pace, taking some pleasure from Shikamaru’s tapping left foot. She doesn’t like baiting Chouji, so she tries to ignore the worried look in his eyes.

When she stands before them, they say nothing to each other. She is wearing their uniform, like her father told her to. Her bangs are pinned up and out of her face, and she looks like an adult. Shikamaru and Chouji don’t like it. Ino is the baby of their trio, and she isn’t herself when she wears all black. She isn’t smiling, and they both look over her, trying to find a scrape of familiarity. She wears both sets of their matching earrings. She got a second lobe piercing, for the hoops they wore as genin.

“You were going to leave without saying goodbye?” Shikamaru sounds accusatory. It’s funny, because she has known him forever but she has never seen this side of him before. He looks cold and inscrutable, like a disappointed father. Ino stays silent, which only makes Shikamaru frown more. Chouji grows restless, and looks at her with pleading eyes.

“Ino, you can’t leave without saying goodbye!” He sounds borderline hysterical, and he is talking with his hands. It figures that Chouji would express Ino and Shikamaru’s emotions for them.

She is silent not because she wants to hurt them, but because she is trying to commit them to memory. They both seem taller, even though she last saw them two days ago. They are both agitated, and she can see that Shikamaru hasn’t been sleeping by the way he rubs his eyes, and that Chouji has been crying.

She didn’t think they loved her this much, or that she could cause them so much worry. She had always been a source of irritation, she figured they would welcome the chance to get away from her.

“You have nothing to say?” Chouji’s voice is raw.

“Aren’t you supposed to protect us?” Shikamaru puffs on his cigarette.

There is so much she wants to tell them. About Asuma’s autopsy report, and her inability to feel anything towards Sai, or how restless she is. How her only certainty is that she needs to leave, go on a journey. Or into exile, like her father instructed her.

“You two are too big for me to protect.” She keeps walking, and when she is a few paces away, she turns to look at them. She bites her lip, because she does love them, maybe more than her mom and dad, and she has been cruel.

“Did my dad tell you?” Ino asks, and Chouji nods while Shikamaru hums his response. “How long have you known that I was going to leave?”

“He told us a week ago.” Chouji wipes the back of his hand against his face. “I wanted to invite you to barbecue, but Shikamaru said you were probably busy.”

“So that’s why you are accosting me in the street?” and for a split second, she sounds just like Asuma and maybe he wasn’t really gone after all.

“We didn’t warrant a goodbye?” Shikamaru counters her question with one of his own. Ino sighs.

“I didn’t say goodbye to mom or dad either.” Ino fully turns around. “All my dad said was that I needed to learn a lesson, and the answer couldn’t be found here. I just feel so…restless. You two don’t need me anymore, and I have some things to figure out.” She bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“You are going to come back, right?” Chouji crosses his arms, trying to sound tougher than he is.

“I think so.” Ino is uncertain. People die, or fall in love; either way, they leave. She just felt like she had been left first.

“The only way we let you go is if you promise to come back.” Shikamaru flicks his cigarette onto the street. Ino smiles.

“People break promises all the time.” Her voice is coy and teasing. But she shrugs her backpack from her shoulders, and opens it. She roots through the clothes and toiletries, to pull out a gold chain and silver signet ring. They are the only items of fine jewelry she owns. She gives the necklace to Chouji, and the ring to Shikamaru. The chain had a small medallion. Both the ring and the medallion bear the Yamanaka crest.

“The ring belonged to my dad and the necklace was my grandmother’s. Don’t lose them.” She looks up at them, crossing her arms. “You two can wear them, but you better give them back when I come home to stay.” Shikamaru looks at the ring in his palm.

“So these are collateral?” Ino smiles.

“Well, I was thinking more like a piece to remember me by, but sure, that too.” She smiled. “I doubt either of you are going to start working in the flower shop or brushing your hair every day in my memory.” Shikamaru smirks, but Chouji grins.

“A little bit of Yamanaka luck? Chouji asks, as Ino throws her pack back onto her shoulders.

“Remember to give our enemies hell,” she winks, “and don’t die while I’m not around to save you.” She holds her hand back out to Chouji. He places the necklace in her hand and she steps behind him, fastening the necklace. It pulls on Shikamaru’s heart, because it reminds him of when they were kids and Ino would make them play dress-up.

“I thought we were too big for you to protect.” Shikamaru puts the ring on his pointer finger. Ino smiles in response. She and Shikamaru had worked closely over the years. She loves them both, but she and Shikamaru can finish each other’s sentences and foresee each other’s thoughts. It will be hard to work with anyone who isn’t him. She can tell by the look on his face that he has figured out that she doesn’t know if she will be coming back.

“You are going to call us when you get there, right?” Chouji is eager, because he can’t read Ino as well as Shikamaru. Ino nods, because they are the only two people who she is obligated to call.

She turns to walk towards the gate, and she is unsurprised when Chouji and Shikamaru follow her. Once they get there, they all look at each other. With a nod, she turns to leave but Shikamaru clears his throat. “You know, I smoke and Chouji eats barbecue all the time, but you are more like Asuma than either of us.” Shikamaru smiles at her, and Chouji goes and gives her a hug for the two of them. When Chouji lets her go, Ino turned her back and walks to the train station.

3

In all honesty, Ino doesn’t really understand why her father sent her out here. In their triad, Shika is the brains, Cho is the brawn and Ino is the requisite backbone to connect the mind and the body. Ino is the will that unites those two forces. It makes no sense to send her away, and she would have said no if she weren’t so restless.

However, she is here now, so all she can do is have faith that her trinkets really do carry some Yamanaka luck. It is the fortitude to not get yourself killed because of the people who love you and need you to return home safe. On the plane, she vows to go back and kill them dead if Shikamaru or Chouji go and get themselves killed, before going out and avenging them. 

German was one of the languages her father taught her. He would frequently be contracted out for intelligence across the globe, and he had prepared her to do the same. She gets in a cab at the airport and is taken to a university building. It is a grand building, neoclassical and made of stone. She walks in, and uses the directions given to her by her father to find an office in the corner of the fifth floor of the building.

She finds the office with the name of the man she is looking for. She knocks, and she hears a gruff _come in._ When she walks into the office, she sees a tall man, who looks like her father, standing by a bookshelf. He has a beard and his hair is up in a bun, and a navy button down. He is smirking, and Ino already knows he won’t go easy on her.

“Hi, my name is Ino. My father said you could help me figure some things out?” Ino stands by the door with her bags. The man nods his head.

“You’re Inoichi’s daughter, aren’t you, Ino?” he moves over to his desk, and picks up a box full of papers. “My name is Anders.” He gestures towards the door, and she leaves the office, him following. He locks the door behind him, and then they are on their way.

Anders is a professor who specializes in comparative genocide studies. He was trained as a philosopher, but turned away from the discipline when he realized he wanted to do meaningful work. He and a small group of faculty and graduate students are building an archive in Berlin. He is currently researching sexual violence. He had spoken to Inoichi, since he has a theory that having someone go into the memories of survivors could potentially be less traumatizing than testimony. They could use Ino to go and fact check, if you will.

Anders walks at a decent pace, and he says that this box contains all the relevant documents Ino will have to familiarize herself with in the next two weeks, before they try it out. Anders is a superficial kind of charming, but Ino sees through it. 

“If you don’t think you can handle it, let me know now and I can send you back.” He is smiling, but his face just doesn’t sit right. It has been a long time since Ino was underestimated. Ino was still waiting for him to tell her how he knew her father, but she found it hard to imagine her father enjoying this man’s company.

They arrive at a dormitory, and Ino picks up a key. Anders had arranged for her to stay in a room in residence, until she settles. She can move off campus whenever she would like. Her suitcase and the box of documents sit in the middle of the floor, as she turns around the beige room. Berlin was more exciting in her head, but now that she was here, she felt even more lost.

As she unpacks her things, she mulls over her father’s words. He had given her only opaque statements. She grits her teeth as she stuffed her suitcase into the tiny closet, using her irritation to help her shove the suitcase in. She slams the door, and stands by the closet, her forehead to the wood panel. She grunts, and decides to lie on the floor, which is dusty. She spies a spider crawl under the radiator, and she decides that it will be her only companion. The Artemis to her Sailor Venus.

She turns her head back up to the ceiling, and debates calling Chouji or Shikamaru to let them know she is okay. But she is so tired, that she can’t peel herself up off the floor. She doesn’t stand up so much as roll over and climb onto her tiny mattress, and she just lies on top of the covers. She sighs, and then she is out.

**

Ino has survived her first month at the archive. She has seen more death and destruction than she had thought possible. Most of this was beyond anything she had been trained to contend with. She wonders what Asuma would tell her if he was here. He would probably just give her a cigarette and his usual blank smile.

The archive is made up of many different documents, and it is not focused on one particular genocide. Rather, it collects any and all documents, books, pictures and footage related to any genocide committed in the twentieth century. Organized by event, researchers can either do a deep dive into a particular genocide or do a comparative study. Anders had explained that it was a way to cross-check, or ensure that no perspective was lost. Ino knew better than to ask questions, so she simply nodded.

Her job was to take down the testimony of victims of sexual violence. She would sit down with people, mostly women, and she would interview them. If there was a memory too traumatic to relive, Ino could ask permission to go in and retrieve the memory. She was supposed to say that she was a hypnotist. Ino thought that was silly, because no researcher would accept the notes of a hypnotist. She also had an increasing suspicion that Anders didn’t actually like women, if he thought their stories needed to be fact checked through invasive means.

Ino, like a lot of freakishly beautiful women, finds it easy to talk to people. She has the kind of face that prompts people to reveal themselves to her. All she has to do is sit across from a person, and they give her their whole life story. She has a way of putting people at ease, and making them feel protected. Chouji had told her that once, after he and Shikamaru watched a middle-aged woman sob to Ino, who was fourteen, about her husband’s affair.

As such, she has never actually needed to use her clan techniques. Anders told her to just say that she uses hypnosis, but Ino knows she could never lie to someone who trusted her with their story. She would tell them everything. Ino is a lot of things, and some of them not very good, but she is not a liar.

She doesn’t feel like she is helping anyone. A PhD student, named James, encourages her to think about the whole picture. He says things like “we have an obligation to remember the dead, and bear witness to what happened to them.” James will become incredibly solemn when he says this, and Ino always has to resist pointing out that a lot of what they are working on is generally accepted as factual. She doesn’t feel comfortable using atrocities to create an ethic. It just seems perverse, if witnessing murder and destruction on a scale beyond comprehension is what makes you decide to have principles. They are just excavating the ruins and taking a catalogue. That’s all.

James, however, is the only one who is nice to her. Well, nice isn’t the right word, since Ino has no doubt that his niceties have strings. He comments on her age, and while she knows it ought to make her feel icky, she is so lonely that she will take any social interaction she can get.

It helps that James is impossibly handsome. He has a nice jaw and broad shoulders, and his eyes are kind. He enlisted in the U.S. Military at 18, and when he was discharged, he got his bachelor’s and was now pursuing a PhD in Berlin. He tells Ino his life story, frequently, and it doesn’t get any more interesting, but she has nothing better to do, and he is cute enough.

So Ino lets him take her to bars, even though she is 18 and has only ever known Sai. She knows that if Shikamaru and Chouji were here, she would never even consider it. But it is flattering when James tells her that she is a baby while he grips her waist, mouth in her ear. She feels like she is being seen by a man. He only kisses her once, twice before leaving her at the steps of her dormitory, and then he tries to roll their relationship back to professional the next day.

It is a push-pull dynamic that makes her feel crazy, and Ino thinks that maybe, this is what love was supposed to feel like. She asks Shikamaru on the phone, but he scoffs and tells her that this guy sounds weird. Ino tells him that she just doesn’t know this feeling in her chest: her heart is always beating like she is in danger, she is always in fight or flight when she and James are alone together. Shikamaru sighs, and tells her that he would rather hear her recite the gruesome and detailed testimonies she transcribes.

Ino threw her phone at the wall with that last comment, and didn’t speak to him for a month. Chouji actually called, and told her to apologize, which she did, reluctantly.

**

It is her nineteenth birthday, her first one away from Shikamaru. He had called her earlier today, and Chouji had sent a card. It arrived today, while others had come the prior week. They are all displayed on her dresser, and they make her smile. She hasn’t told anyone at work

Today, James finally doesn’t pull away from Ino. They are on the steps to her dormitory, and she smiles against his mouth. His arms are around her waist, and he kisses her jaw. She maneuvers her head to grant him more access, and she giggles the way she thinks she should. Eventually, she just pulls him up into her room, and as he lies on the bed, he looks up at her, eyes drunk and bleary.

She stands beside her dresser, and his eyes flick to the top. Seeing the cards, his eyes grow wide, and he sits up. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.” She hears the smile in his voice, but she feels self-conscious. She doesn’t want him to make her feel like a child. She wants him to look at her and see a woman.

So she smirks and shrugs, and straddles him. He runs a hand up her back, and he tells her she is prettier than any other girl he has been with. She glows with pride at that remark. She wants nothing more than to be someone’s Great Love, and he is a handsome war hero. She glows, imagining him meeting her parents, their wedding, children. She is nineteen and she believes that she has to do this all quickly, and that your first chance is your only one.

She kisses his jaw, and when she sits up to peel her top off, he looks at her with an intensity that she has never seen. When his beard scratches against her face, the back of her neck tingles. It is like she has never been kissed before. When they have sex, Ino decides that this, right here, is the beginning of the Rest of Her Life.

After, she lies in her twin bed, half on him, and she looks out at the moon in the sky. She smiles to herself and looks up at him, knowing that he just gave her the best present she has ever received. He helped her become a real woman of the world. The next morning, they fuck again and he takes her to breakfast. It is the most grown up thing to ever happen to her.

When she tells Sakura about it the next day, she waffles between insisting that the age difference enhanced their affair and saying that it was good despite the eight years between them. Sakura, who is back in Konoha, lonely and pining for Sasuke, coos that he sounds like a real man. Even manlier than Sasuke, _and_ he is a hero with a moral backbone!

Ino laughs, and says that Sakura should come to Europe. _The men are so much better here_.

**

In two months, Ino moves in with James. When she mentions her new living arrangement to Anders, he raises his eyebrows. He has seen this before, but he knows better than to say anything.

When she tells Shikamaru, cradling the phone to her ear, whispering, she sounds so excited that Shikamaru bites back his comment about her shacking up with her co-worker. He makes a joke about how James is old, but if he makes her happy that is all that matters. Ino beams because she thinks she has the approval of all her friends. Sakura was swooning, Chouji was supportive and Shikamaru said it was okay.

Things are really coming up Ino. Because she moved into his apartment, and she didn’t bring any furniture, she decides to buy plants to make the place feel like her own. She buys peace lilies, a few succulents and a cactus, placing them strategically. When he comes back from work and sees the plants, he frowns but saves face by remarking: “you really have a green thumb.”

They have the kind of relationship where they are looking for a grounding in each other. Ino notices that sometimes his moods are so low, like, can’t get out of bed or brush your teeth bad, and then after a month or two, he will have two weeks of staying up all night, reading and speaking so quickly she can barely keep up. This is followed by a crash, and then a period of normalcy. James is always apologetic, and he makes sure to get to the doctor when he notices any fluctuation, but it is hard when you feel like you are a literal void or plugged into the animating force of life itself.

Ino understands her purpose: to protect James, to help him change. She sets his appointments, and ensures that he takes his medication as recommended. She is ever vigilant, because they are a team and she is in love.

She tells this to Shikamaru, because it takes up a huge chunk of her psychic life. He sighs on the phone, and tries to ask her about other things, but it all comes back to James. Shikamaru has no doubt that her boyfriend is in real pain, but he can’t imagine relying on a literal teenager to make your problems go away. Chouji simply tells her to keep eating, that she must preserve her strength. She knows this means that he is worried, but she cannot imagine why. She is in love, and happy. Can’t he see it?

But James really isn’t all bad. His mother is half-Japanese and his father is German, so he and Ino slip between the two languages easily. He is from a place called Iowa, and she finds herself saying it to herself. EYE oh AH. She doesn’t need to know the city to understand that he is from a magical place.

They even work out together. They talk about their backgrounds while jogging all over the city. Ino doesn’t tell him about being a ninja or her jutsus, but she talks about her family and friends. James always keeps the pace brisk, and picks it up when she mentions Shikamaru or Chouji. Eventually, she just stops talking about them, and she will hide their phone calls and letters.

When they jog, he likes to talk about how his mother doesn’t understand him. She resented him for joining the military, and she didn’t approve of his grandfather taking him hunting as a boy. James still has that hunting knife—did he tell her that his father had been a long distance runner in high school, but broke his wind by smoking?

She shakes her head, trying to focus on keeping up the pace. It isn’t hard to convince James that she is deeply interested in what he has to say. However, she is beginning to feel like something is missing. Like there is a gap, somewhere in her being. Which is ridiculous, because she is in love and happy. She thinks about Asuma’s wound, and while she knows she doesn’t have a hole in her chest, there are times like this, when she is with James and feels empty. She shakes her head and keeps running, because surely, the only way to move on is to forge ahead.

That night, she speaks with Sakura on the phone. She is still torn up over Sasuke, who is still on the lamb. Even after all this time, Sakura insists that he is the Love of Her Life. And look, while a very real part of Ino’s contempt is because she is in Real Love with James, she has valid reasons for being done with Sakura’s whining. She has stopped mentioning the murder attempt, abandonment and complete disinterest on his part. But Ino doesn’t know how many more times she can listen to this story. Sasuke is a traitor, and Sakura needs to accept that his choices are what brought them to this place.

Ino sends a silent prayer of thanks that she never helped Sakura try and find him. Shikamaru had told Sakura that he and Chouji would seek revenge if anything should happen to Ino. She has complete faith in Shikamaru and Chouji, but she doesn’t like the odds of them taking on Sasuke.

Five minutes after she hangs up the phone, it starts ringing. She lifts the receiver, and it is Shikamaru. There is a war brewing, and she needs to come home.

4

Ino tells Anders and James that there has been a death in the family, and she will need a month off. Her dad picks her up from the train station, and when he asks whether or not she has figured it out, she shakes her head. He tells her that she needs to go back to Berlin, when this is all over. She just won’t figure it out here.

When they walk up to her house, Shikamaru stands there, smoking. Ino smiles, and that gap in her chest closes. She drops her bag at her father’s feet, and runs and tackles Shikamaru to the ground. He lands with a thud and a yelp. “Hey, did you have to do that?” he grunts, shoving her off him. She laughs in response, and his ears go red. He looks for his cigarette, but she is closer and stomps it out with her foot. He really scowls this time, and if not for Inoichi and her prolonged absence, he would say something caustic.

He bites it back, and sighs. “I missed you, Ino.” It’s true. He can work with anyone but she, somehow, is the person he still thinks of when he hears the word partner. Ino has flopped on the ground, happy to be out of the cramped seating. Her bangs are back down over her face, covering the full extent of her beauty, the same way that the sharinngan and byakugan can’t always be activated. “I missed you too.” She smiles. They lie on the ground for a bit, looking up at the sun.

“Did you figure it out?” Shikamaru puts his hands behind his head to lie down. Ino sucks her upper lip.

“Nope.”

“Well, hurry up,” Shikamaru breathes out, “there people here who need you.” He has never made his resentment so plain, but he it is how he feels. He raises a hand over his eyes to block out the sun, and she sees the ring she left him. It glints in the sun, and in all honesty, it suits his hand. She hums in her throat before replying. “I have a life there, Shikamaru.” He snorts in derision, sitting up. “You have a boyfriend. That isn’t a life.” He stands up, and she is glaring at him. He likes it when she is in a serpentine mood. It means she is still herself. She doesn’t say anything, but that is because the gap in her chest is gone. Ino stands up with him.

“Chouji wants us to meet him for lunch.” She nods, and they leave as Inoichi walks through the gate with her bag. He nods at Shikamaru, and tells them to say hi to Chouji for him.

**

Her reunion with Chouji is free of resentment. He immediately gets up to catch her, and he is too big for her to knock over. They have always matched each other’s energy levels, and it takes no time for the three of them to fall back into their routine.

Ino looks at the medallion around Chouji’s neck as he plays with it. Shikamaru fiddles with his ring whenever they talk about the war. Ino is glad that she gave the jewelry to her friends. Like her father, she doesn’t require adornment to command attention. Chouji needed something to look like a warrior and Shikamaru needed something to give him authority. Now, she can believe Chouji to be fearsome and Shikamaru will look like he belongs at the adult table. She is glad that she found a way that didn’t involve scars or war paint.

But they both have a tendency to fiddle. “Stop doing that,” she says, “stop fiddling. People with power don’t fiddle.” She learned that from Anders, who never stutters or asks twice. Shikamaru frowns and looks at his hand, and Chouji gives her a weird look. She rolls her eyes, and after delivering a signature _suit yourselves_ shrug, she pops some tripe into her mouth.

**

Ino had missed Shikamaru and Chouji for a lot of reasons, but the first is that they are the only people she can properly work with. They still work flawlessly together, and not only do they take down Asuma’s reanimated corpse, but Ino and Shikamaru survive their dads dying. Asuma had told them that he had no more to teach them, and Shikaku and Inoichi had told them that they were proud of who they had become.

Temari said she had no idea how they survived. Ino shrugged and Shikamaru had lit a cigarette. It is waste of time to cry over a dead dad when they had saved so many other people’s fathers that day.

Shikamaru was right to tell people not to cry for either of them. Neither he or Ino can respect weakness in themselves. It is one of their few identical traits.

After the battle, they are outside the camp. They are both exhausted, but they had snuck out of the medical tent as soon as he was able to hobble out again. He is more banged up than she is, but she snuck some beer in her pack, so there they are, looking over the cliff towards the crater that had been HQ.

It is 3 AM, two days after the worst day of their lives. The war is over, and Ino and Shikamaru aren’t children anymore.

“So much for Yamanaka luck.” Shikamaru rolls his eyes at her and holds up his hand, the ring glinting in the moonlight. He hadn’t fiddled with it once. “Hey, we’re still alive.” Ino sighs and nods, giving him this one victory.

“So, what was in your dad’s box?” Ino asks, “I get the feeling you and my dad knew what was in it.” She smiles, and Shikamaru snorts.

“Let a man’s secrets die with him, Ino.” Shikamaru sips his beer. They pause. Ino chews the inside of her lip and Shikamaru pulls out a cigarette.

“I wonder if our moms know.” Ino sips her beer. She hears Shikamaru light his cigarette. She doesn’t bother telling him that the habit will kill him. They just survived the worst thing to have ever happened to them. Allowing him a death on his terms doesn’t seem so bad.

“I hope not. They should hear it from us.” He takes a puff. Ino sighs.

“Working in the archive, I know war is usually so much uglier than this,” Ino wraps a strand of hair around her finger, her voice inflecting. “But _fuck_.” She starts laughing, and Shikamaru joins her. Imagine: knowing war could be infinitely more brutal but still having to deal with the unimaginable. They are grateful to be alone, because no one else would understand.

The laughter peters out, and Ino takes another sip. “I missed working with you.” Shikamaru says, the laughter making sincerity palatable. “Chouji is my best friend but you are my partner.” Ino looks at him, eyes soft. “Don’t tell him, though.”

“You are a great leader. You bring the best out of everyone.” Ino looks ahead to the night sky, and she wraps her arms around her knees. “You could be Hokage one day. You are up there with Sasuke and Naruto, hell, even Sakura.”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you. You just know what I’m thinking,” Shikamaru leans back onto the ground, his body aching. “I want you to stay.” He knows she won’t. It doesn’t mean he can’t have an opinion about it. Ino squirms.

“I never figured out the lesson.” She pauses, “I have to go back.”

“Did he give you a clue?”

“No. He just said it could only be learned in exile.” She fiddles with a stone, and throws it into the valley. It climbs a long, shallow arc before colliding with the ground.

“You’re not in exile,” Shikamaru remarks, “you aren’t barred from Konoha. I want you to stay, Ino. It just,” words fail him, as he stumps out his half-finished cigarette. “Life here isn’t the same without you. It blows.” Ino looks at the crater, where their father’s charred remains presumably lie.

“I have to. I have a life there now.” She feels guilty, because while she has thought about all the images and testimony she has been exposed to, not once has she thought of James.

“You have a whole life here, with Chouji and I.” She sighs through her nose.

“But my dad still has one thing to teach me,” she says. “I have to go.”

Shikamaru snorts beside her, because as far as he is concerned, she really doesn’t have to do anything. But he lets it go, because he loves her and knows when to stop pushing.

“You know, sitting in the cold, drinking beer and looking at the ruins of HQ is warmer than whatever Sakura and Sasuke are doing in their tent.” Shikamaru chuckles at his own joke, and Ino throws her head back to cackle.

“Fuck, I am not ready to hear Sakura gush about him on the phone,” she wipes her eyes, and Shikamaru raises his beer. She taps her bottle against his, and they drink.

“I wonder what his quest for redemption will look like.” Shikamaru drawls. Ino looks over to him, with one of her pit viper looks. “He can never redeem himself, Shikamaru.” He nods in agreement, and he knocks her bottle back against his own.

5.

The nature of grief is this: it is like having a rock in your shoe. It stabs you every time you take a step forward. The sensation is painful, but tolerable. But if you never take it out of your shoe, the pain will drive you crazy.

There is a mass funeral service that they all must attend. There will be no individual services, for pure convenience. It is cruel that the sun still rises even though her father is dead. Ino and Sakura had gone with Hinata and Tenten, who had lost Neji. When Ino had seen Karui and Temari hovering over Chouji and Shikamaru after the war, she knew that there was no longer a place for her. They had announced their engagements, and while she was happy for them, she thought it was gross that they were doing this over Shikaku and Inoichi’s graves. So she went with other girls who had lost people they loved.

The four girls sat in their matching black yukata, on a curb. Ino’s elbows were on her knees, Sakura’s arms were crossed, Hinata’s legs were outstretched and Tenten was leaning back on her hands. They all looked vacant, glazed over. No one had anything to say, so they were just quiet.

Yamato strolled by, and stopped to offer his condolences. Tenten and Sakura smiled graciously, but Hinata just stared straight ahead, and Ino pursed her lips. He remarked that they looked like the four horsemen after the apocalypse. He even assigned them one each. Sakura was Conquest, presumably because she came out of this victorious. Tenten was War, Hinata got Famine, and Ino, lucky, lucky Ino was assigned Death. She bobbed her head, pretending to find this insightful and entertaining, until Yamato left.

Because Death always has better things to do, Ino doesn’t wait to book her ticket back to Berlin. She has spoken to her mother, who agreed to become the head of the Yamanaka clan in Ino’s place. Ino doesn’t tell her mom that she had no plans to come back. Knowing how Shikamaru and Chouji feel, she told them when she was leaving. They said they were too busy to walk her to the gates, so she set out for herself.

She was walking down the street, thinking about nothing in particular, when she spotted Shikamaru and Chouji at the gates, arms crossed. From their posture, she could tell they were upset. She groaned, but kept walking forward. She can tell that she won’t get to simply talk her way out of this one, and her pain and grief have only coalesced and cemented in her gut.

She really wasn’t the mood to deal with people standing between her and the life she is pretty sure she wants. She doesn’t know, but you can never _know_ , can you?

“I didn’t think you two would see me off.” Ino squares her shoulders, and tries to look more relaxed than she feels.

“You shouldn’t leave.” Shikamaru says this like it is a command. In all their years of knowing each other, not once has he spoken to her like she was inferior. She narrows her eyes, defensive because she hasn’t repeatedly questioned their relationships or their choices in how they live their lives. She begins to realize that this is an intervention, and it ignites her anger: that her dad is dead, that she doesn’t know if she is in Real Love, that she knows she will go back to living with a hole in her chest. She knows Shikamaru would make the choice sound easy, but she knows in her heart that she is going to leave.

“This hasn’t been my home for a year.” She replies, voice smooth and even. She sounds like her father.

“You can’t leave us again!” Chouji stamps his foot, stepping forward. He is a man but he is acting like he did when he was ten. They are no longer children but the vestiges of their childhood are always present.

“You are a clan head now,” Shikamaru replies. They are all supposed to have the same fate. That was the plan. “Have you forgotten Ino-Shika-Cho?”

“My mother has taken up my duties as head of the Yamanaka clan.” Ino replies. “You should take it up with her.” Shikamaru frowns. He hates it when she out maneuvers him. Chouji is getting angry, she can tell by the way his cheeks are puffing up. She can deal with his anger over Shikamaru’s disappointment.

“You can’t leave like this,” Chouji shouts, “we are meant to carry on that tradition!”

At the mention of tradition, Ino’s hackles raise. What is their tradition worth if her father and Shikaku have barely grown cold and Shikamaru and Chouji get engaged? Ino has been thinking this ever since the war. None of the pain or misery or suffering is worth it. She loves Shikamaru and Chouji. But she isn’t ready for any of this: becoming a clan head, resigning herself to Konoha. She refuses to believe that her fate has been decided for her.

Her response is as gutting as it is true. “I am not going to stay here to carry out a fate none of us signed up for. I didn’t choose this, and neither did you. You should consider leaving too. Ino-Shika-Cho will destroy you if you let it.” Ino brushes her bangs out of her face and behind her ear. Shikamaru hates it. It reminds him that they aren’t kids anymore.

“We are here because we need to protect the village and future generations, Ino.” Shikamaru tries to ignore her comment about Ino-Shika-Cho, since he didn’t entirely disagree. That was the point: they would give their lives up for each other. He can tell that Chouji is mad, so he steps up between the two. Ino glares at him.

“Shikamaru, we all know that is the thing we say to make ourselves feel better about how fucked up this whole system is!” Shikamaru narrows his eyes.

“You are a product of the system,” he puts a hand out to her, as if he were being reasonable. “You can’t know that there is an outside.”

“But there is an outside! I have lived there for a year.” Her hands are on her hips, and she steps right up to Shikamaru. They stare each other down, and Chouji decides to try a different tactic.

“We’re both getting married!” Chouji says, “are you telling us that you are willing to pass up on not one, but two weddings?” Ino stares at her friends, looking between the two of them.

The truth is that she no longer has the capacity to care. Life feels empty, meaningless. You can dress it up. You can find a principle; you can get married. But she refuses to try and look for meaning where there is none to be found. She will stand before non-being and affirm that her father no longer exists. It doesn’t matter whether or not she is okay with it.

“Good for you.” She says. Her tone is dry. Chouji blinks, shocked at her indifference. Shikamaru realizes how angry he is first, and for once, his rage takes the lead. Ino starts walking past them, but Shikamaru stays on her heels. Chouji stands back, watching them.

“So, that’s it?” when he gets angry, Shikamaru becomes quiet. He doesn’t yell, like Ino or Chouji. His anger radiates. Ino refuses to look back at him.

“Uh huh.” Shikamaru grabs her arm and turns her around to face him. Ino scowls.

“Inoichi,” he gets right in her face, “would hate this.” Ino’s features contort when she hears him speak her father’s name. She is beautiful, even when she is angry. But her loveliness transforms into something terrifying. Shikamaru doesn’t scare easily, and he used Inoichi’s name to provoke this reaction.

“Oh,” her face twists, “and Shikaku would want you to get married because you don’t know what to do now that he is dead?” Ino has never questioned Shikamaru’s relationship directly. She doesn’t believe in poisoning the happiness of others. But every so often, when the mood strikes, and she is miserable, nothing feels better.

“That is cruel, Ino.” Shikamaru lets go of her arm, repulsed. Ino, incensed, doesn’t hold back.

“I don’t care if you want to waste your life, doing something because it is tradition and your dad is dead!” Anger feels good. It feels human. She pulls back, and she sees the clear divide between her and them.

Shikamaru’s face is set in a grim line. Chouji looks wounded. She knows her face is red. She knows that there is no going back.

“So you are leaving, and never coming back?” Shikamaru asks, quietly. Ino nods.

“C’mon Ino, you didn’t mean any of that,” Chouji steps forward. Ino steps back, and he looks hurt.

“I’m not going to sit here and watch you two die like Asuma, Shikaku and dad,” she looks down, crossing her arms. “I want something different for myself.”

She looks up to meet their gazes. Chouji turns away. But Shikamaru looks her in the eye.

“I will pawn your dad’s ring.” It is a petty threat. Her father, who no longer exists, is not that ring. She gave it to Shikamaru, to do with as he sees fit. Looking into his eyes, she raises her chin and replies: “Do it. I truly do not care.”

6

The flight is miserable. She throws up on every plane. She gets back late at night, and it is raining. She walks up to her apartment, back sore and ready to keel over and die. She has been gone for a month, and she can’t wait to curl in bed next to James and remember what it felt like to have a father.

She has dealt with so much, that she is hung over from the pain. She takes the steps, two at a time, and when she unlocks the door, she isn’t surprised by the dark apartment. She flicks on the lights, and as she looks around, she notices that something is different. The air is stale, and there are dishes everywhere. She sets her bag on the ground, and walks into the living room.

She looks around, and realizes her plants are missing. She had six, and they were all hardy. There is no way he could have killed them all in a month. She sees a note on the counter, and she picks it up. It is written in his messy boy handwriting: he is sorry that he isn’t here for her return. He is sleeping at the archive tonight, because he is about to make a huge breakthrough. Oh, and the plants? They all died of natural causes.

Ino frowns. She looks at the dishes around the room and the laundry on the table. The plants didn’t die. He had to have thrown them out. It feels like a slap in the face, an act of war. Ino is already tired of this song and dance: she does so much to take care of him, and he can’t bother to take care of a few plants? Ino throws the note out, before her resentment properly sets in. She won’t replace her plants.

When she goes into work, she wears her fatigues. They are the only thing she can wear, now that her father is gone. She walks into the archive with a cup of coffee, her hair out of her face. She reports to Anders, and says that she was happy to get back to work. Anders gives her an inscrutable look, and points over to James, who is hunched over, unshaven.

As soon as she sees him, she can see that he is in one of his black moods. She imagines he probably threw her plants out in a fit of pique. She can tell he hasn’t been sleeping. He looks gaunt, like his beauty has been put through a washing machine. He reminds her of a dirty tennis shoe.

She doesn’t know where her contempt springs from, but it only intensifies a few weeks later when, after having cleaned the apartment and getting them both onto a better sleep schedule, James tells her that she has really matured. He says this, completely ignorant of the fact that it came at a high personal cost. She doesn’t tell him that her father is dead or that she has cut ties to her past life. She doesn’t receive an invitation to either wedding, and she dodges her mother’s calls.

She insists on wearing her fatigues and keeping her hair out of her face. It is the only way she can honour her father, and with his passing, all colour has faded from the world. Sex loses its appeal. James is busy at work, so at most, they go through the motions, and every time he rolls off her, she breathes a sigh of relief.

Every time she looks in his eyes, she realizes that there is nothing in her heart or in his eyes. The only thing between them is a big empty space.

7

In a matter of weeks, the gap is back. Ino decides to focus on her work. This is the second year that she works in gathering testimony. She is now working to reunite bone fragments with their loved ones. It is grim work, but Ino finds the darkness comforting. Today, she is interviewing a survivor. Due to confidentiality, each subject goes by an initial and a number. Today Ino will be speaking to A #8694, who Ino will refer to simply as A.

A is in her forties, but when civil war broke out in her country, she was twenty-three. She has clear, unmarred skin, and her hair is brown with streaks of grey. She smells like cloves, and she wears silk scarves and a camel coat. She has a pale scar on her temple, the only evidence of the war she had survived.

This is the third time Ino has spoken with A. She has asked Ino about her family, and Ino lies every time. Yes, her father and mother are both alive. Ino is in love. She has indeed, found her calling in this gruesome work. A is well spoken, and poised. She always has a sly expression, and she exudes intelligence. Ino would like to be like her, when she grows up.

Today, A is going to talk about her family, who she lost in the war. Ino puts out a tape recorder, and hits record when given the signal.

“This is Ino Yamanaka, speaking to witness A #8694.” Ino always uses her phone voice when she begins these interviews. “A, would you like to begin speaking?”

“Where would you like me to start?” A’s voice is silky. She isn’t a native German speaker, but she is fluent. She enunciates each word with a delicate precision Ino has only seen in Sai.

“I would like to hear about your sister.” Ino smiles. A has a hard time talking about her sister. This is their second attempt to try and broach the topic. A straightens herself in her chair and takes in a deep breath. A clenches her jaw and her eyes are steel.

“My little sister was named Elena. She was born four years after me, and the last time I saw her, she was nineteen.” A takes a tissue from a box Ino placed in front of her. She fiddles with the tissue, turning it over in her hands. “I find it hard to talk about her. I loved my whole family, but living without her makes me feel as if there is a hole in my heart.” A, inhales, and tilts her head to look up at the ceiling.

Ino leans forward in her seat. “A hole in your heart?”

“Yes, a hole.” A looks into Ino’s eyes. “It’s funny. The morning that we were separated, we were in our apartment, and our family was gone. Our father and brother, fighting in the resistance. Our mother, already shot dead. Before the soldiers came, we were fighting about who used the last of the hot water.” A bites her lower lip and looks at the table. “The most important person in my life, and the last time we had an actual conversation, I was calling her a bitch for using all the hot water. It is so…silly. There was a civil war, our family members were dead or missing, and I thought a hot shower was so important that I cursed her.”

“We didn’t speak for the next hour. You know how it is with someone you love—you believe you will have all the time in the world with them. But then the soldiers came and we were taken into custody and separated. I never saw her again. I knew what happened, because it happened to me too. I simply happened to survive.” A is the kind of woman who dabs instead of wipes her face. She looks up, and Ino tries not to think of the last time she spoke to Shikamaru and Chouji.

“I went back to our apartment, after the war, and it had been untouched. Dusty, but it was still the same. And I waited five years, for her to come back. But she never did.” A looks at Ino, her eyes clear. “It has been over twenty years, and there is nothing that will fill that hole. I have my own family now, but there is no one who will replace my sister. It is other people who make you who you are, and when they are no longer around, there is a gap inside that can never be filled. “A taps the table with her knuckles, and her engagement and wedding rings sparkle. “I would give anything to see my sister, and tell her that the water never mattered, and that I love her. I would tell her that she is a cherished piece of who I am, and that I am not the same person now that she is gone.”

“Her remains have never been found, so I suppose I can claim to not really know. But in my heart of hearts, I know she is dead, and that I will never reunite with her. More than anything else I endured in the war, losing her has been the worst part.” A pauses. “Do you think it is bad to love someone more than your own mother? Because that is how much I loved Elena.” She looks at the wall behind Ino’s head. Ino’s heart is thumping. She hears a lot of things in these interviews, but it takes everything in her not to tell A that she has a gap too, and that she is still trying to figure out who is missing.

“Isn’t it funny,” A says, “I know I survived the unimaginable: there is no way to describe war, sexual violence to someone who has not lived through it. But losing someone you love, a person who is so important that they are a part of you—that pain is beyond any comprehension, even though I have to live with it every day. Ino, have you ever noticed that even when someone is gone, whether they are alive or dead, if you loved them deeply, they will always be an integral piece of you?”

8

Since her interview with A, Ino has been plagued by nightmares. She wakes up sweaty each morning, before dawn. She can never remember the content of her dreams even though they are bad enough to make her reconsider dodging her mother’s calls. But she too much of a coward to face her mom, and she knows that Chouji and Shikamaru probably don’t want to hear from her. James is still sleeping at the archive over his research. While Ino knows that can’t be healthy, she wouldn’t want to wake him up with her.

She woke up this morning, at around 5 AM. It is noon in Konoha, so Ino sighs and picks up the phone. She dials the number and waits one, two, three rings before the call is answered.

“Ino?” Sakura’s voice is bright. She must be at the hospital. Maybe the children’s ward.

“Hi Sakura, how are you?” Ino walks out to her living room, wrapping herself in a blanket before sitting on the couch. Sakura hums on the phone. Probably stepping outside of the ward.

“I am fine. Sai and Naruto are fine. Things with Sasuke are…fine.” Ino can tell that things aren’t actually okay. But she knows Sakura isn’t ready to admit it, so Ino forges ahead.

“I had another nightmare.”

“Ino,” Sakura sighs. “You should just call your mother back. Or Chouji or Shikamaru.” One of the fundamental differences between her and Sakura is that her friend will take things head on.

“I don’t know if I can.” Ino looks up at the ceiling. “I feel like too much time has passed. I think it is just best that they forget about me.” The hole in her chest gets wider and wider with each day. If she had to guess, it is probably bigger than the one that felled Asuma.

“I don’t agree.” Sakura pauses. “But they’re all fine.” Sakura doesn’t mention that Ino’s mother now paces, or the Shikamaru toys with his ring and Chouji touches the medallion on his neck in a superstitious gesture. She has asked each of them about their new habits. Ino’s mother and Shikamaru play dumb and sidestep the question. Chouji just blushes and stuffs his fist into his mouth.

Sakura has to go, but she says that Hinata has moved to Florence. They will more or less be in the same time zone. She passes on her address and phone number, and Ino decides to write a letter before work. Sakura hangs up, and Ino walks over to her table, taking out a pen and piece of paper.

She pulls out James’ computer, and for the first time in years, listens to Bruce Springsteen. Her father would listen to him when he was working in the garden, whistling a tune or half-singing under his breath. _I’ve got debts that no honest man can pay_. Isn’t that the truth. Inoichi liked listening to musicians who could be referred to as blue collar. The aforementioned Boss, Tom Cochrane, Johnny Cash. The kind of men who wrote music for people working essential jobs for shit pay, who dream of something more. When she was twelve, he explained that this music helped him remember that there was more in this world. She had made a face and said that was depressing, and he had smirked and replied, “that’s just life sometimes.”

She would groan when he put this music on. For a few years, Inoichi, Chouza and Shikaku would happily supervise all playdates with their children, just so they could listen to music like this and drink beer. They did this even when Ino was fighting with Chouji or Shikamaru. They would all be plopped in the same room, and when someone complained it would be received with a shrug and a “get used to being stuck with each other” or “come get us when someone is being murdered.”

Ino would now give anything to be eight years old again, complaining about their fathers’ music tastes while Chouji ate chips and Shikamaru lay back in the sun, watching the clouds.

Ino writes all this down. She tells Hinata how much she misses Shikamaru and Chouji, and that there is a gap in her heart, and she is sure it is because of them, not her dad or her boyfriend. It ends up being three pages, and having no idea whether or not it will be truly welcomed, Ino stuffs it in an envelope and writes out the address.

She buys a stamp and sends it before she can think twice, on her way to work.

9

For months, Ino will only speak to Sakura and Hinata. They each ask her if she is sure she won’t try and call Shikamaru, you know how little he cares about his health, he probably has an ulcer by now. Ino always shakes her head, saying she can’t go back. Ino dreads Hinata’s visit, since she knows she won’t be able to hide the extent to which her new, shiny life hasn’t panned out.

However, she is curious about Hinata’s relationship with Sasuke. She figures out that they are sleeping together by the squeaky, rushed way Hinata speaks about him. She really is obvious. Unlike Sakura, Hinata doesn’t seem insecure or uncertain in her relationship with Sasuke. Truth be told, when she isn’t skirting around the fact that she is sleeping with him, Hinata makes Sasuke sound like a great guy. It would be nice to see someone in love. So Ino is torn between wanting to see two familiar faces and wanting to hide her own. Ultimately, she decides to let them come.

The day they arrive, James is driving her up the wall. He seems nervous to meet Ino’s friends, constantly asking her what they are like and what they do for a living. It grates on Ino, and if she weren’t trying to tidy up their apartment, she would just leave for a walk. He couldn’t be bothered to help, since, while in the final throes of his dissertation, James has decided it was Ino’s job to make sure that their apartment remained habitable. Ino starts cursing when she finds a third moldy plate, under a stack of papers in the living room.

When Hinata and Sasuke turn up, it is mid-afternoon. James answers the door, pretending to be happy to meet Ino’s friends and delighted by the idea of getting to know her better. Ino can see it clearly now: James was never interested in her life in the first place. She is just an accessory, a trimming on his own.

Sasuke and Hinata both have a tan, and Ino notices the way that they orbit each other. Neither are particularly affectionate, but when Sasuke pulls the strap of Hinata’s dress back up onto her shoulder, his expression soft and focused, Ino knows that she is looking at the real thing. Hinata gave Sasuke a small smile, but immediately began to blush when she saw Ino’s expression. Sasuke turned and reflexively scowled. _Some things never change_. Ino smirked.

“So, how did you two find each other?” Ino asks. They both look uncomfortable, and vaguely guilty. They appear to assume that Ino is pettier than she really is. If anything, they did the best thing possible. They ensured that Sasuke was definitively no longer Sakura’s problem. So Ino waits, and eventually, Hinata shrugs her shoulders. Ino looks to Sasuke, who deflates a little bit. He looks to the ground, and Ino allows herself to indulge in the kick to his ego. It is not even close to what he did to Sakura, but it is something.

As they sit and catch up, Ino can tell that Hinata and Sasuke think her boyfriend is a tool. He will say something that he believes to be witty or insightful but is actually condescending, pretentious or wrong, and Hinata will blink and Sasuke looks like he swallowed a lemon. Ino is glad to see that it isn’t just her who finds him grating.

Eventually, he decides to go do some work in their room, and Sasuke needs to call Naruto, so Ino and Hinata decide to go on a walk. Ino points out different shops and bars. She never visits them, but she pretends she has so that it looks like she has a life outside of work. Hinata convinces her to walk into a plant store, and Ino fiddles with a jade plant while Hinata looks at a snake plant.

“You’re wearing your fatigues.” Hinata says in a quiet voice. Ino doesn’t feel like explaining that she does it for her father, or that they are the only thing that hides the extent of her weight loss. She shrugs. “They are the only thing that fit.” Hinata gives her a sceptical look, before picking up the plant Ino was playing with.

“It’s a gift,” Hinata says, “for letting us stay with you.” Ino scrunches her mouth, nervous. Hinata frowns, misreading her expression. “Do you not like it?”

“No, it’s not that,” Ino frets, “it’s just that James…” Hinata raises her eyebrows the moment Ino realizes that she is about to tell a really unflattering story. Ino’s mouth freezes open, and Hinata tilts her head.

“What about James?” Hinata’s voice is low, and something dangerous flashes in her eyes.

“He doesn’t like plants,” Ino replies, “he is hopeless with them. When I was back in Konoha, he killed, like, all of my plants.” She chews her thumbnail. Hinata swallows as she registers the gesture. “Weren’t you only home for a month?”

“Yep. He is hopeless.” Ino waves her hand dismissively. Hinata still holds the plant. Ino can tell that Hinata suspects that her plants were simply binned.

“But do you want this plant? Don’t they bring luck?” Hinata holds the jade up. Ino looks from the plant and into Hinata’s eyes. She nods. She misses having plants around her. Hinata smiles, and she goes to pay for the it.

They walk out of the store, and back towards the apartment. “Jade means good fortune, right?” Hinata asks, holding the plant for Ino. She nods in response, and her friend smiles. “Maybe it will bring you luck.” Ino looks ahead, shrugging.

“Hinata,” she begins, “I think Sasuke was really upset when you shrugged.” Hinata frowns, looking out onto the street.

“I just didn’t know how to answer the question.”

“Is there no answer?” Ino teases. Hinata blushes, and Ino grins wickedly, “ah, so there is a story.”

“We, uh,” Hinata starts, “we kind of just started sleeping together.” Ino gives her a confused look.

“I already figured that’s what you were doing.”

“No, I mean,” Hinata whispers, “we had sex an hour after he showed up in Florence.” Ino’s mouth hangs open, and Hinata winces. This little tidbit was just _delicious_. Ino never, in a million years, suspected that Hinata and Sasuke, of everyone she knows, in every possible combination, would be the couple who started banging and just ran with it. It was just so…uncharacteristically human for the two of them. Ino grins, and Hinata refuses to look at her.

“Hinata,” Ino says, “I had no idea you had it in you.” Ino tosses her hair over her shoulder, and for a second, it is like they are in Konoha. “I’m actually quite proud.” Hinata flashes a smile, and they fall into silence. They walk for a little bit. Ino looks at Hinata. Love has made her softer. Hinata isn’t tense, or nervous. She only looks forward. Ino looks down at the street, wondering when she stopped looking towards the future.

Hinata kicks a rock, and Ino comes back to attention. “Have you still not called Shikamaru or Chouji?” Hinata asks. “I think they’re married now.” Ino hums. _Hmmmmn_.

“I don’t think they want to hear from me,” Ino puts her hands in her pockets. “I don’t even know what I could say, to make up for the things I told them.” Hinata sighs.

“Can you at least promise me that you will call them the moment you figure it out, even if you think they don’t want to hear from you?” Hinata turns to Ino, into her dull blue eyes. Ino smiles and nods her head.

“Have you thought about going back?”

“To Konoha?” Hinata replies.

“Yes,” Ino says. Hinata puts her chin up towards the orange sky, thinking.

“I think Sasuke and I are going to move back in about three months,” Hinata says, “when the two of us talk about home we talk about Konoha.” Ino nods her head.

“I don’t think I have a home, Hinata,” Ino whispers.

“What do you mean?” Hinata looks puzzled. Like Ino spoke a completely different language.

“I don’t think I belong anywhere.” Ino looks ahead. “I don’t belong here, or in Konoha. I’m lost.” Hinata looks like she wants to say something to that, but she just closes her mouth.

Eventually, Ino asks Hinata what Sasuke’s dick looks like, and the face Hinata makes Ino bend over, cackling, holding her stomach.

**

It is 3:45 AM. All Ino wants is to go to sleep. She lies on her side, trying to use a pillow to block out the overhead light. James has stopped sleeping, and Ino is largely indifferent. He reads all the time, consumed by his research. She hasn’t had years of formal education, but she is well read. She knows that most of his ideas are derivative, at best.

They aren’t happy. To be specific, he is unhappy: with his dissertation, his life, and so he allows his unhappiness to radiate, choking out everything else, including their relationship.

Ino had always thought that love was about making concessions. Transforming yourself into a person that could be loved. It is why she wore her hair long for Sasuke, why she acted demure for Sai and why she took care of James. She thought that the trick to life was being desirable. She had acted accordingly.

She remembered explaining this theory to Shikamaru and Chouji once. Chouji looked at her like she was an idiot and Shikamaru asked, “why do you want to have to do so much for someone to love you?” Ino had screamed at them, and Shikamaru retorted that she only did that when he was right. Luckily, Asuma had rounded the corner and pounced before she could really give Shikamaru a piece of her mind.

So, this is how living the theory feels. It has been nearly two years, and she cannot live like this anymore. Not when Hinata has been more tender with Ino in the last few hours than her boyfriend has been in the last two years. Not when she knows that real love is lifting a loose strap back up onto a shoulder and there is a hole in her heart. So, she lifts the pillow up and rolls onto her back.

“James?” Ino asks in a quiet voice. She doesn’t have the energy to be angry. He turns to her, eyes bright. For a moment, she thinks this will go well.

“Yes?”

“Do you think we could go to sleep? I am pretty tired.” Ino stays on her back, in a submissive position. James eyes her with contempt. He thinks her work is silly, even though, last time Ino checked, he used the testimonies she collected in his research.

“Ino, I can’t rest.” James replies, “I have to stay up.”

“No, you don’t.” Ino grits her teeth. She always made excuses for his behaviour, but she was tired and really, really needed the sleep. “Everyone needs sleep.”

“You have no idea the pressure I am under,” he is glaring at her. “You have no appreciation for my work.” Ino narrows her eyes. She consciously restrains herself from saying something she will really regret.

“It is a dissertation, James. It shouldn’t be killing you.” Ino says quietly. James laughs coldly, before slamming his laptop shut and getting up, out of bed.

“You don’t know the first thing about life, Ino.” He doesn’t bother changing his underwear, putting on a pair of trousers. “You have never laboured over a project. Not like I have.” He turns his back, and she looks at the muscles in his back.

She has never laboured over anything like a dissertation, but she has suffered. Her father was killed in front of her. She couldn’t save her sensei, even after years of medical training. She had suffered so much that she drove her two best friends in the world away from her. Her boyfriend threw her plants out behind her back. She is in so much pain that she won’t even stand up for herself. She feels bound to him, that he is her fate in the worst way possible. She sits up in bed, and she blinks coldly. James, fully dressed, puts on a pair of socks.

“I am going to work in the archive.” James is angry, and she can hear all the mean things he won’t say while Hinata and Sasuke are in the other room. There is a darkness in him that Ino had tried to shield him from, but she can see things clearly now. She can’t save him from something he refuses to take accountability for. He would happily drown them both, if it meant that she kept indulging him and his ‘genius’.

He may love her, but it isn’t the kind she deserves. She watches him pack, becoming colder and colder, and when he slams both the bedroom and front door, she doesn’t even jump. But she does start crying, and she is on her side when Hinata slips into her room. Hinata stays with her that night, rubbing Ino’s back while she cries.

**

Hinata and Sasuke ask her what happened with James, in their own ways. Ino covers for him. She knows he is genuinely suffering, from something beyond his control, so she blames his research. He doesn’t come back to the apartment until after they are gone.

He comes in, fresh, clean and rested. He makes coffee, and apologizes. He has just been so stressed, and he is at a crossroads in his research. “I liked your friends, Ino.” He offers his approval like a prize. Ino restrains herself from replying, “they didn’t like you.”

10

The big things in her life all happen in the span of a few days. Ino supposes that it is just how the universe works. Anders had come into her office that morning, holding a bag with a mandible inside. He places it on a stack of documents on her desk. She is used to working with remains, but they are usually in a lab.

“Female. Genetic testing says she is related to subject A #8694. A sister. You are close with her, right?” Anders says this in a clinical tone. The truth is that he hates being the one to deliver bad news. So it is always Ino’s job to give people the worst news of their lives.

She takes out the file to find the right phone number, and Anders hovers. He is looking at Ino strangely.

“You don’t have to do that today,” he remarks. Ino looks at him like he has grown another head.

“I don’t have much to do,” she replies, “it is no bother.”

“Even after James left?” Anders asks. When Ino gives him a bewildered expression, he runs a hand through his hair. “He told you that he left the program, right?” Ino shakes her head.

“I’m sure he was planning to. He will tell me when I get home.” Ino isn’t entirely surprised. He was so stressed, and nothing seemed to go right. She wasn’t as highly educated, but she could see he was floundering. It is hard when you aren’t as smart as you want to be.

“Ino,” Anders says, “he got on a plane.” Anders looks at her like he is terrified that she will break.

Ino freezes. She drops the file. So this is how it feels to be left? When she was a girl, she always thought the worst thing in the world would be for a boyfriend to leave her. But this feeling is elation. Like a breath of fresh air. She smiles, but when she sees Anders’ face, she quickly feigns depression. “I’ll make this call, then I will leave.” Ino follows up by asking if she could deliver the mandible to A. He waves his hand, happy that she has taken this task off of his plate.

Anders leaves her office, and she dials the number of A. Her voice is soft, and when Ino delivers the blow, she replies with restraint. Ino can hear the tears in her voice, because it is now official that her sister will never walk through the door. But now, she knows where her sister is. Ino promises to stop by on her way home.

Ino tucks the bone into her purse, and is at A’s house within the hour. It is a beautiful brick building. She rings the doorbell once, and A is immediately there. She has been crying, and when Ino gives her the jawbone, wrapped in plastic with teeth missing, she cradles it to her chest. “Elena is home.” Ino says, and A looks at her with a sad smile. “Yes, Elena made it home. I knew she would, eventually.”

Ino leaves shortly after, and on her way home, she buys a bag of barbecue chips to celebrate her freedom. When she gets into the apartment, she can see all his clothes and favourite books are gone. In his note, he explains that everything left behind can be given away or sold. He says that he just wasn’t getting anywhere, that he needed to go home to be with the people who knew him best. He apologizes, profusely, and swears he truly wanted to get better.

At the end, he says that they could even try and make it work in the future. With that, Ino scrunches up her nose and flushes his letter. Opening the bag of chips, she places a large one in her mouth. Her jade plant rests on the table, and she walks up to it. “Looks like it is just you and me, baby.” She rubs a leaf, looking at her phone.

James is gone now. Her shiny life hasn’t panned out. Ino still hasn’t learned her lesson. She figures it is time to throw a Hail Mary, as Anders would say. She picks up the phone, and dials one of the five numbers she knows by heart.

The phone rings twice, before he picks up. “I swear to god, Naruto, if this is you—“

“Shikamaru?” Ino cuts him off. She is calling him late.

“Ino?!” She hears him walking around. Probably looking for a cancer stick.

“The one and only.” She smiles. It is nice to hear his voice, “how are you?”

“Same old,” he mutters. She hears a click, meaning he probably lit a cigarette. A door shuts on his end, and he is probably outside. Konoha is warm this time of year. “How are you?” Ino takes a moment to smile. She places a chip in her mouth to suck on.

“Shit out of luck.” Shikamaru snorts.

“How so?”

“Well, turns out I was a giant asshole to the people who really care about me, for someone who I don’t even like that much.” Ino swallows the starchy pulp. “I am sorry for leaving you and Chouji, and saying those things I did. It was uncalled for, and it was cruel.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Shikamaru replies. “I was an asshole too.” Ino frowns.

“I did the thing I thought my dad wanted me to do to,” she sighs. “I think he wanted me to do it so I would learn not to take his advice.” Shikamaru barks with laughter, and Ino smiles. “Do you remember when they made us listen to Bruce Springsteen?”

“How could I forget?” he groans. “Did I ever tell you my dad would sing that in the shower?” Ino cackles.

“It can’t be worse than my dad’s singing.”

“But your dad rode a motorcycle,” Shikamaru sighs, “it fit his image. My dad was a dweeb.”

“He had scars all over his face!”

“Fine,” Shikamaru says, “he was a dweeb who fell into a drawer of knives.” They both laugh. Ino cries, and Shikamaru starts hacking up a lung. She falls off her chair, and she lies on her floor. It feels so nice to laugh with him again.

She breathes for a moment, and she can hear him breathe on the phone too. Their breaths sync up. “Shikamaru?” Ino asks.

“Yes?”

“I need you and Chouji to come get me.” Ino states her needs plainly. Shikamaru sighs.

“Sasuke told me to come get you when he was there.”

“You sent him to spy on me?” she shrieks. Shikamaru holds the phone away from his ear. He would tell her to pipe down, if he wasn’t so grateful to hear her voice.

“Well, I didn’t want to see him around the village,” Shikamaru replies, “and I figured he would be able to get you out of whatever trouble you could get in.”

“Jokes on you,” Ino says, “I am pretty sure you are the reason he and Hinata found each other.” Shikamaru groans.

“Is that why he hasn’t come back yet?” Ino nods her head even though he can’t see her.

“They’re in love.” Ino says, “it’s sweet. Kakashi probably doesn’t even care.” Shikamaru clicks his teeth together. They are silent for a bit, until he speaks. “Should we fly in next week?”

“This week would be preferable.”

“Why? Is your life on fire?” Shikamaru kicks himself for asking. Obviously something had gone wrong. She wouldn’t call him if her pride hadn’t taken a beating.

“My boyfriend left the country and I am quitting my job tomorrow.”

“Fuck _, Ino_!”

“I love you!”

“You better,” he seethes, “and you better be really nice when Chouji and I show up.” Ino beams.

“I can’t wait to see you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know.”

“I called you instead of my mom.”

“I won’t tell her,” he smiles. “I got to go back to bed. I love you.” When he hangs up the phone, Ino smiles. She spends the rest of the night lounging in her underwear, talking to her plant, listening to Springsteen and eating chips.

**

Shikamaru decides he hates flying as soon as they get on the first plane. Chouji can sleep anywhere, but the engine roars in Shikamaru’s ears. When they land in Berlin, they catch a cab and in fifteen minutes, they are in front of brown brick building. They buzz the number Ino gave them, and five minutes later, they see her walking towards them.

She is thinner. She wears her fatigues, and her hair is still out of her face. She sounded alright on the phone, but he can tell that the past year has been rough. She opens the door and stands back, until suddenly, they were all standing in front of each other.

“How was the flight?” Ino asks. Chouji smiles, and Shikamaru grimaces.

“I slept on the plane,” Chouji replies. Shikamaru just groans, so Ino doesn’t bother pressing him for an answer. They stand there for another minute, before Ino throws herself onto Chouji.

“I’m so sorry Chouji,” she says, “I shouldn’t have said those things.” Chouji hugs her tight, and when he sets her down, he nods. “You’re always forgiven, Ino.” Ino looks to Shikamaru, and she hugs him with more restraint. When he has his arms around her, he can tell feel thin she has become. There is no padding; just angles. He steps back from her, and he holds up his ring.

“I didn’t pawn it.” Ino looked at it, and smiled.

“You could’ve,” she says, “it is yours.” Chouji scoffs, and Shikamaru sighs.

“I mentioned it once and Temari yelled so loudly that my ears rang for like, a week,” Shikamaru grimaces at the memory. “She told me that my spite would backfire, like it always does.” Ino laughs, and she turns to lead them up the stairs. “I kind of like having a bit of your dad,” he continues, picking up his suitcase, “it made up for you not being around to keep me in my place.”

“The Yamanaka luck is a real thing, Ino.” Chouji adds. She considers chewing him out for putting himself in the position to find out, but she decides against it.

**

It’s late, when they finally arrive. They all decide to just sleep in her bed. She sleeps by the window, Chouji is in the middle, and Shikamaru is by the door. She and Shikamaru roll into Chouji, but she finds it comforting to have them close. The lights are off, and it feels like they are genin again.

“We’re married now, Ino.” Chouji whispers.

“Congratulations,” Ino whispers back, “really.”

“We don’t have to whisper,” Shikamaru says in a quiet voice. He can feel them both glare at him.

“It is for the ambiance,” Ino hisses. Shikamaru sighs.

“Okay, fine,” he whispers back.

“Whatever. Anyways, congratulations. I’m sorry I missed your weddings.” Ino says. She props herself up, so she glares at Shikamaru over Chouji’s stomach. Chouji shifts his weight, and looks up at Ino. “Kids on the way, too.” Chouji says.

Ino shrieks, and stands up, and turns on the light. The two men shield their eyes. It has been awhile since they have had to predict her moods.

“You two are going to be DADS! And you are only telling me _NOW_!” Ino points a finger at them. Shikamaru puts his hand up and Chouji lies there. It’s usually best to ride her outbursts out.

“Well, we weren’t really talking,” Shikamaru shrugs. Ino pouts.

“I would have come back if you told me there were babies.” She glares, and climbs back into bed. She turns her back to them, and shuts off the light.

“What do babies change?” Chouji asks. “Isn’t that just more of the tradition you hate?” Ino huffs, but she doesn’t turn around.

“Kids change everything.” Ino’s voice shakes. “Someone has to make sure you two don’t go and get killed, if there are little people relying on you.”

There is a silence that envelopes the three of them. Asuma is a distant memory, but when they think about him it always cuts close. Shikamaru sits up, and looks at Ino’s back. They had all taken it badly, but he always sensed that she never really got over it. She wouldn’t have pulled an Asuma and left, if she was fine with it. But talking around Asuma rips off the scab. They were now able to reach the point in a sleepover where they could share their darkest secrets.

“Sometimes,” Shikamaru whispers, “I’m afraid that I rushed into things with Temari. Maybe it was a mistake.” Ino rises, and turns over to look at him. His voice is shake-y, and they make eye contact in the dark. Before she can respond, Chouji pipes up. “I’m not sure about being a dad,” he says, “like, I’m excited but it all feels too soon.” Ino looks at both of them. She has failed Asuma, if this is where the two of them are.

“We can work with that,” she whispers. “We will figure it out, you guys. I should have been there, but I’m here now. We will figure it out.”

There is a beat, and they all exhale at the same time.

“What happened to your boyfriend?” Chouji asks.

“He went home.”

“No, what really happened?” Chouji asks. Ino sighs, and looks at the two of them.

“He didn’t really love me, I suppose,” Ino lies back down, and she turns her back towards them. She knows they are frowning, but they don’t ask any other questions.

**

James didn’t leave anything behind that couldn’t be easily replaced. Chouji and Shikamaru will occasionally make fun of an especially pretentious looking book or a really ugly poster. Most things will be donated. Ino has no interest in selling anything, but Shikamaru makes her sell the furniture.

Ino tells them a little bit about her relationship, and Chouji is appalled. When Ino shares with them that James’ accused her of not understanding his genius, Shikamaru snorts and Chouji blows a gasket. “He said WHAT?” Chouji waves his arms. “You can read Shikamaru’s mind,” here, he points to Shikamaru, who is packing a box with books, “but _you_ are too _dumb_ to understand a document that is composed of information you gathered?” Chouji’s face is red and his eyes are fiery. Shikamaru looks back at Ino, who is wrapping some glasses.

“He sounds like a real dick, Ino.” He deadpans. She shrugs, not disagreeing.

“Whatever. He’s out of my life for good, and he did it himself.” Ino says, “I can’t ask for anything more.” Chouji, who is still mad, stomps around the apartment. Shikamaru heads to the kitchen, taking out the mason jars what James insisted on using as glasses, out of the cupboard.

Chouji is fuming, but Ino is too tired to be angry. She is just glad that it is over.

“I mean, Ino,” Chouji throws dirty shoe into the garbage, “who wouldn’t want to be with you? You are the best damn Yamanaka _and_ the Prettiest Girl of All Time!” Shikamaru picks up a spoon, and taps it against the glass, saying, “here, here.”

Ino smiles. It’s not weird for Chouji and Shikamaru to comment on her looks. They are the only two people who are able to look at her without becoming distracted by her beauty. They are always able to see her for who she is, even when she was a monster to them. “He was pretty too.” Ino says, “being with someone pretty isn’t important to pretty people.” Shikamaru snorts.

“You have only ever liked pretty people, Ino.” He says.

“Sasuke, Sai, He-Whose-Name-Is-Not-Worth-Remembering.” Chouji counts on his fingers. Ino rolls her eyes.

“Whatever. I’m not dating for a while.” Ino picks up a glass and wraps it in newspaper.

“Maybe that was your dad’s lesson,” Chouji says. “Don’t date people for their looks.”

“No, no,” Shikamaru says. “It’s: don’t abandon your friends when you get into a relationship.”

“No, I am pretty sure Inoichi wanted to stamp out Ino’s narcissism.” Chouji looks right at Ino, a look of pure delight on his face. “That’s what I would want to change.”

Ino scowls and gives him the middle finger, and Chouji laughs. Shikamaru wheezes, and looks at her. “But seriously, Ino. Do you think you figured it out?”

Ino bites her lips and shakes her head. “I have narrowed it down to two possibilities: ‘don’t take your dad’s advice’ or ‘let Shikamaru have all the big ideas.’ But I am probably wrong.” Shikamaru shrugs and turns back to the collection of jars, while Chouji throws another book in the donation pile.

He misses, and Shikamaru and Ino both laugh when he ends up knocking over an entire stack of books instead.

11

Their last night in Berlin finally arrives. They sleep with the mattress on the floor, and they plan to throw it out in the morning. They are finished cleaning the apartment. Shikamaru has the door open and smokes on the balcony. Chouji lies on the floor.

Ino has holed herself up in the bathroom, and she stares at the stick in her hand. She keeps staring at the two lines, panicking. This is not how her life was supposed to turn out. She was supposed to fall in love, and have a perfect family. But here she was, alone and pregnant, with Shikamaru and Chouji lying around her empty apartment.

She doesn’t even consider calling James. He counted himself out when he left the fucking country without any way to contact him. She immediately knows she wants to keep this baby; she has seen so much death in the last few years, that it would be blasphemous to do otherwise. She looks up at the blank wall before her.

Could she even be a mom? Ino knows she is stubborn and wrathful. She would be alone. She is going to have to ask Kakashi for her job back, just to go on leave. She puts a hand over her stomach, trying to divine her future. She closes her eyes, and tries to think of what pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood could look like, without the father.

Behind her eyelids, she sees her future in her past. Her mother holding her. Her father gardening. The first time she got the jutsu right. Pushing Shikamaru forward, when he was too lazy to go play. Chouji swiping the last piece of barbecue. The moment they had to send Asuma back to his grave, and he told them that there was nothing left to learn. Her and Shikamaru drinking beer after the worst night of their lives, looking at the crater.

She doesn’t want to look forward, because what she was looking for was right in front of her. She stands up, and excited by the answer, she nearly yanks the door off of its hinges.

She throws the test onto the counter, and she stands in the middle of the living room. Chouji looks up at her, lazily, and Shikamaru throws the butt of his cigarette over the balcony. “I know the answer.”

“Didn’t we decide it was about the journey and not the destination?” Chouji asks, and Shikamaru nods.

“No, my father had a real lesson.” Ino sniffs, “unlike most people, he liked me as I am.” Shikamaru rolls his eyes, and steps back into the apartment. “Well, don’t keep us waiting.”

In her head, it is all so simple. But when it comes out of her mouth, she rambles. “I don’t care about Konoha, or the King, or the next generation.”

“It would be easier to list the things you care about,” Shikamaru remarks. She narrows her eyes, but she allows the remark to pass.

“Whatever. The lesson is this: the people you love are an irreplaceable part of you.” Ino crosses her arms. Chouji tilts his head and Shikamaru stays silent, waiting. They know that staying silent risks her temper, but they have nothing to say. This is intuitively correct. They had no idea that this would be a big discovery for her.

“Look, I love you two more than I love my own mother. I have been miserable without you, because wherever you are, I am home. I was wrong to say otherwise.” She pauses, for both dramatic effect and to collect her thoughts. “I don’t care about the King, or the Will of Fire, or Ino-Shika-Cho, but I care about you two, more than anything. And you exist here, and right now.”

“I want to protect you two from everything in this fucked up world. I want to see someone call you dad and sensei and watch Temari and Karui love you and beat you up. I want to see you two be _happy_ ,” Ino’s lower lip trembles. It’s clear that she isn’t done, so the two men continue to watch her. “I want to keep my promise to Asuma, so I am going to go back to Konoha and protect you two,” her voice gets quiet, “you two aren’t allowed to die like dad did. I won’t allow it.”

She pads over to Chouji, and slumps against the wall closest to him. He looks to Shikamaru, and they come to the silent understanding that, while it was appreciated, Ino didn’t have to say anything to them. “Ino,” Shikamaru says, “you don’t have to say this to us.”

“Yeah, we already know.” Chouji smiles at her. Ino takes in a breath, and thumps her head against the wall.

“No, I do. I kept trying to run away, when the thing I actually wanted was here. I don’t really need anything, except for you two to be safe.” She shrugs. It figures she would accompany the nicest thing she ever said to them with a shrug.

“I hope my kid has friends they love as much as I love you too.”

“Kid?” Chouji sits up, face white. Shikamaru tilts his head, like she has said something that she will need to repeat again. Ino’s face gets red.

“Oh, yeah. That’s why I was in the bathroom.” She continues, “I mean, you’re the only two people I want to tell.” She shrugs. She does that when she doesn’t want anyone to see how emotional she is. Shikamaru smiles, because this is the Ino he remembers.

“You should know we can’t stay mad at you, even when you deserve it.” Chouji smiles, “it is dirty to bring a kid into it.”

“Ino, we flew out here to pack up your stuff. We obviously feel the same.” Shikamaru takes a carton of cigarettes out of his pocket and tucks one behind his ear. “But, I have to admit, it is pretty funny that you ended up following tradition when you came out here to avoid that.” He puts the cigarette in his mouth, and gets up to go to the balcony.

“I just wanted you to know that I will always choose you two.” Ino wraps her arms around her legs. “I won’t fuck it up again.”

The screen door rattles as he pushes it open, and Shikamaru smiles at Ino one more time, before stepping out into the warm night.

12

She doesn’t regret her time in Berlin. She learned that she could endure the unimaginable, that she could be a real grown up. She sits in the aisle of the airplane. Chouji is in the middle, and Shikamaru is by the window. They have the armrests up for Chouji’s comfort. They had stocked up on nicotine gum and chips before getting on the plane, and she looks forward to reading a book while they sleep.

They sealed her jade plant into a scroll, which Shikamaru has in his pants pocket. He has his head against the window, and Ino can tell that he isn’t looking forward to the journey home. Chouji flips through a magazine, humming.

“So,” she says, breaking their silence. “Hinata and Sasuke.” Chouji rolls his eyes, and Shikamaru hums. “What about them?”

“I hope they invite you to the wedding,” Ino says, “if not, you’re my date.”

“I have nothing against her, but I refuse to spend time with that asshole, let alone buy him a present and congratulate him.” Shikamaru scowls. Ino is always surprised by his capacity to not just remember an offence, but how it felt when it was committed.

“You’re the one who got them together,” she replies. Chouji smirks, reading his magazine.

“You’re the one who set it all off.” Shikamaru replies. “If you hadn’t left, then Hinata probably would have stayed and I never would have sent Sasuke to deal with you two.”

“Why did Hinata need protection?” Ino asks. It has been bothering her for a while now. It made no sense to send Sasuke out for a year to look after two people off active duty. Shikamaru sighs and rubs his face, as if he was reliving a particular horrible memory.

“Look, Neji had just died and I guess,” Shikamaru sighs, “I just felt like she probably needed someone. I don’t know her well or anything, but she just seemed so broken, and Kiba was threatening to follow her and I was mad at Sasuke, so I just did the easy thing by sticking them together.” Shikamaru’s ears are red. Ino smirks. She knew Shikamaru was a romantic, like her. He turns to scowl, but her grin just gets wider.

“You’re the reason Sai and Tenten found each other,” Chouji interrupts them. “I mean, you broke up with him and their paths happened to cross on her way out of town. Like it was fated.”

“See, Shikamaru? I am fate incarnate,” Ino volleys, and Shikamaru smirks.

“Pretty sure Sakura wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for you leaving too.” Shikamaru sits back. “You kicked this whole thing off. Now I get to deal with it.” He rubs his temples. “Sasuke and Sai now don’t want to go anywhere, Naruto wants time off to go visit Sakura, you will be on maternity leave,” Shikamaru rubs his forehead, anticipating the labour shortages.

“You don’t have to accommodate everyone’s requests,” Ino replies, “well, except mine. This baby won’t support itself.” She sighs, and Shikamaru exhales in defeat.

“It’s lonely at the top,” Chouji says, “Shikamaru just wants to have friends his own age. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, you don’t have to hate Sai on my behalf,” Ino says primly, “I broke up with him.” Chouji smirks. “That’s not why he hates Sai.” Chouji turns a page in his magazine. “Shikamaru hates Sai because you stopped paying attention to us when you two got together.” Chouji turns to look at Ino, smiling. “I, being forgiving, have let it go, but Shikamaru is still mad about it. He can’t stay mad at you, so Sai is an…” Chouji waves his hand.

“An object of transference?” Ino asks. Chouji shrugs, not knowing what that means but it sounds, intuitively, correct. Shikamaru looks sheepish. Ino puts her hand across Chouji, and pats Shikamaru’s arm. The last time she did that, they were thirteen and Shikamaru’s first mission as a chuunin had failed.

“Well, I don’t want you to hate me, so yes, keep on hating Sai.” She smiles, and Shikamaru touches her hand with his. Adolescence had been weird for all three of them. It made physical affection taboo. But they missed being able to offer comfort, to touch each other on the human impulse for connection.

“And now Sakura is in Chicago, curing cancer.” Chouji interrupts their moment. “and you’re coming home to Konoha, pregnant.”

“If it is any consolation, Sakura seems really happy,” Ino says. Shikamaru tuts.

“I would be really happy too, if I never had to deal with Sasuke again.” He knocks his fist on his thigh. Ino frowns.

“I don’t remember you being this spiteful.”

“It’s lonely at the top,” Chouji repeats, and Ino shrugs. She turns back in her seat, and picks up her book. Shikamaru leans over in his seat to speak to her.

“How are you feeling?” Ino snorts in response.

“Pregnancy isn’t a disease, Shikamaru.” She deadpans. “I’m fine.” Shikamaru smiles at her, and she can tell that he is going to say something mean.

“I can’t wait to watch you get fat.” Ino turns to glare, but Chouji starts laughing, tossing his head back. The other passengers ignore them, and Ino knows she can’t lash out in front of civilians.

“Man, Temari and Karui are going to get such a kick out of it.” Chouji wipes a tear away, “I mean, I already do.”

“I mean, we can forgive you ditching us for your quest, but Temari and Karui were pretty pissed that you weren’t there to help,” Shikamaru replies, “Chouji and I are useless at making decisions about those kinds of things.”

“So many swatches.” Chouji nods. Ino glares.

“Whatever.” Ino leans forward and turns in her seat to look at both of them. “They should be worried about me. I’m ten times meaner than they are, and you two have seen how stubborn I am when I have a goal.” Chouji laughs out loud, and Shikamaru grins.

“You sound just like Asuma did when he bragged about his bounty being five million more than his friend.” Shikamaru says. Chouji nods.

“I still think it’s really funny that Shikamaru was his favourite but you were the one most like him. You are even having a child out of wedlock.” Ino smiles, and turns back in her seat.

“I don’t know how I ever could have wanted to be anything else.” Ino smiles.

When Chouji falls asleep and Shikamaru finds a movie to watch, Ino picks up her book, but instead of reading it, she opens the cover and grabs a pen. She writes down the answer, so she won’t forget it. ‘Real love is when you find the people who make you who you are.’ It needs finessing, so she scribbles under it, ‘the people who love you so much that you constitute each other i.e. your best friends.’

She then opens the book to the page she left it on. “As soon as we all stop being enchanted,’ Don Quixote explained, ‘human love’ll again be possible,” Ino reads, and she continues on, even though she knows that she is no longer enchanted and that real love, for her at least, was not just possible, but had always existed, even before she was born.


	2. Choice v. Fate

_“I could stare at your back all day”_

_Mitski, Pink in the Night_

1.

It doesn’t take a long time for Tenten to pack her things. She has some of her mother’s weaponry, a few photos and her scrolls. Everything else could be left behind. Tenten throws her pack onto her shoulders. She looks around her room in the barracks. It is small, with enough room for a twin-bed, a desk and a dresser. Her parents had died when she was a baby. She had never had a home to go to.

But in the chaos of the war, a letter had arrived for her. When she finally got back to the barracks, bruised and smelly, it was in her mailbox. Written on floral stationary, it was a letter from her aunt. Apparently her mother had an estranged sister, who didn’t know Tenten even existed. When photographs from the war began leaking to the national press, her aunt had recognized her sister’s likeness, and called the Leaf Village. After two weeks, someone from admin told her that her sister and brother-in-law were both long dead, and that she had a niece.

Her aunt had left the Leaf Village long before Tenten had been born. She was her mother’s older sister. Her name is Rin, and she wanted Tenten to come live with her in Kyoto.

Tenten hasn’t asked for discharge, but she had asked for a leave of absence. Since Neji had died, it was easily granted. Amidst the turmoil, no one knew that they had broken up the week before his death. Their last fight had been brutal. Tenten had finally confronted him about his painfully obvious feelings for his cousin, Hinata. She was the person he checked on first, and no, it wasn’t because he was her guardian, but because he loved her. Tenten told him to go tell Hinata, because people were dying and he might not have time. He turned on her then, and told her to go to hell. Tenten didn’t even cry, but she went off food for a few days. Neji refused to admit it, even in the very end. A week passed, and then he was dead.

Tenten was taken to view his body after, since only Hinata knew they were no longer together. Lee had given Tenten his forehead protector, and she gave it to Hinata after. It had belonged to two men who had died for her; it was hers by rights. Hinata walked around like she was lost, and she was the only one other than Tenten and Lee who visited Neji’s grave.

If death comes a second time when the last person who knows your name passes, Tenten hopes Hinata lives a long life with many children. Neji had deserved so much _better_ than what life had given him. Tenten wasn’t even mad at him. She just felt an incredible and overwhelming sadness for who he would have become.

Tenten looked around her room once more, and left. She locked the door behind her and tucked the key into her pocket. It was ten o’clock at night. She had told Lee that she was moving away, but she decided it was best to call him when she got to Kyoto. She doesn’t think she could bear to leave him behind. He is her truest friend.

Tenten keeps her head down, and picks up her pace. It will take her forty minutes to get across town and another hour to get to the train station. Her train was to leave just after midnight, and she refused to be late. She just wanted to get away from the grief and stress of this place. Ino had gone back to Berlin a week ago, and Tenten had completely understood why she had left. There was nothing to be found here but dead loved ones and the futures that never came to pass.

Her aunt owns a café. She offered Tenten a job as a barista and a room to stay in. A year to clear her head and revaluate. Tenten wonders what kind of woman her aunt will turn out to be: she thinks she must be remarkably kind, but that may not be case. She lives alone with a cat, so Tenten could be walking right into an even more stifling place. But no bother: she would figure it out.

In her attempts to picture her aunt’s life, she pays no attention to her surroundings. Everything is a blur, until she walks into a tall man and falls on her ass. When she looks up, it is none other than Sai hovering over her, attempting to affect something akin to worry.

He still isn’t very good at emoting, so his worry looks superficial. He hasn’t said anything because he is concentrating on getting his facial expressions correct. Tenten, impatient and with somewhere to be, cuts his act short and pushes him up and off of her.

“Sorry about that,” she stands up, brushing herself off. She looks at her right hand, and the heel is scraped up. Great. She leans over to help Sai up, trying to keep her frustration to herself. Sai smiles at her.

“Oh, it’s no bother,” he waves her hand away, and Tenten looks around to see all that she had spilled. There are oranges all around them, and she bends over to pick up the three at her feet, while Sai collects the other five.

“I am so sorry, Sai.” Tenten waited to hand him the oranges. She is tapping her foot, and looking all around. She really doesn’t want to run into anyone else they know.

“You seem impatient.” Sai says this neutrally, but in a tone that when used by Neji, would make Tenten narrow her eyes. “I’ve upset you.” Sai says it in the same tone, and Tenten frowns.

“You just remind me of someone, that’s all,” she throws the fruit into the bag Sai holds to her, and he stands up in one fluid motion. She goes to start walking, but Sai catches her wrist.

“Are you leaving?” Sai doesn’t know why he asks her this question. He doesn’t know her very well, and he has never had the desire to. But he has this feeling he can’t shake. It is cold and uncomfortable. Empty and restless. He does not know its name, but it had forced him to leave his apartment tonight to walk around a grocery store for half an hour and buy oranges he didn’t need, and it forced him to ask the question.

Tenten looks down at his hand and then back up at his face with an annoyed expression. This is the part where he should let go of her wrist, so Sai does.

“Yes.”

“On a mission?”

“No.”

“Well, then where are you going?” Sai looks at her with a blank expression, but she can hear a childish interest in his voice. She sighs, because she knows that she shouldn’t be so annoyed with him.

“There is a train I need to catch,” she starts walking, and Sai, ignoring all social cues, follows her.

“I’ll walk you!” He says, the chilly feeling spreading throughout his body. He just doesn’t want to be alone with it, that is all. Tenten gives him a strange look, but she nods.

“If you are going to help me get out of here, you better start walking!” Sai jogs up to her, and despite herself, she smiles.

They walk in silence, which Tenten doesn’t mind. It is probably good that someone will see her off, if only to prevent Lee and Naruto from launching a poorly thought out search party. Sai matches her pace easily, and he projects an air of intimidation that Tenten finds comforting, even though she doesn’t need it.

“So where are you going?” Sai asks in an elegant voice. He is hyper articulate, like Neji. It had made Tenten feel uncomfortable sometimes, how well-spoken Neji was in comparison to her. Sai had been forged into a weapon like Neji. It figures you would want weaponry to speak with eloquence.

“I am going to Kyoto.” Tenten keeps her eyes focused on the path ahead. “I have an aunt who wants me to visit. Now is as good a time as any.”

“Why are you leaving in the middle of the night?” Sai asks, looking up at the sky. He considers painting a bird, but he doesn’t want to say goodbye. _Curious, this feeling_.

“Because I am done with Konoha: the destruction, the death.” She marches forward, picking up the pace. Sai, distracted by the stars, falls behind. Tenten turns her head and shouts back, “look, we need to pick up the pace.” Sai nods and catches up effortlessly.

“You think you can really leave?”

“I need to clear my head.” Tenten replies. Her back is straight and she refuses to look back. “But as far as I am concerned, there is nothing for me here.”

For some reason, this hurts Sai, even though he doesn’t know her very well. It stings whenever a comrade says they don’t need you. Sai looks at her, really looks at her. She isn’t striking the way the other girls are. Her hair and eyes are a plain colour, but she has a wholesomeness that Sai finds sweet. She carries herself well and moves efficiently. Sai decides that she is quite pretty. That is all beauty is: a judgement.

“What about Neji?” Sai asks innocently, perfectly aware Neji is dead. All the women around them don’t move on from their departed loved ones. As if refusing to move on means that person isn’t really gone.

“He has been dead for weeks.” Her voice is terse. “What about Ino?” Sai laughs in response, as they cross through the gates of the village.

“It has been a year.”

“A year, two weeks—what is the difference?” Tenten replies. Sai shrugs. If that is how she felt about Neji, who was he to tell her that she was wrong.

“One is considerably shorter than the other.” Sai swings his bag of oranges beside him, another gesture which reminds Tenten of the boy he wasn’t allowed to be. It is strange to see him move with such whimsy, but she finds it so endearing that she doesn’t comment on it. Saying something would make him stop.

“Well, how you feel about your time with Ino is how I feel about mine with Neji.” It is a non-answer, but they have an hour to kill and Sai is more interesting than she had initially judged him to be.

Sai hums in his throat, thinking of how he should respond. “I suppose I am happy to have loved her, but for entirely selfish purposes.” Tenten turns to look at him, and she tries not to blush when she realizes he has been looking right at her.

“What could possibly be selfish about falling in love?” Tenten asks, and Sai smiles.

“I learned that I was capable of it. That’s all,” he shrugs. That is another gesture she didn’t think Sai was capable of, but it strikes her that is because she doesn’t know him well.

“I like that.” She smiles, and takes hold of the straps on her backpack. Sai looks at her round face and the buns on her head, and snorts. “What is it, Sai?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Try me!” Sai snickers, and looks at her confused face.

“You look a lot like Sailor Moon.” Tenten blanches, and Sai smirks.

“It’s just because of the hair.”

“You have a similar jawline.” Tenten huffs beside him, because she has always felt like Usagi was a whiney baby, even after she supposedly grew up. She is about to say something snarky, but there is a cloudy look in Sai’s eyes, and he keeps talking. “Ino had a Sailor Moon phase when she was a child, and apparently she coerced Shikamaru and Chouji to play it with her.”

“No way.” Tenten covers her mouth to avoid laughing, and Sai smiles at her, nodding. “If I recall, Shikamaru was Sailor Mars because he has a mean streak and the shadow jutsu looks similar to one of her attacks. Chouji was Sailor Jupiter because she is the biggest and the best cook. Ino was Sailor Venus, because, well you can imagine: love and beauty.” Sai looks up at the stars, smiling.

“I don’t believe you.” Tenten laughs, “I just can’t see it.” Sai gives her a devilish look, and leans right into her ear.

“There are pictures.”

“Really?!”

“Yes. Ino’s mother was learning to sew, so she made them each a costume.” Sai looks over his shoulder, and then leans in closer. “I have them.” Tenten’s eyes go wide and her jaw drops. Sai thinks the expression is sweet, if a little uncouth.

“You need to let me see them some time.”

“When you come back.” Sai says this in a moment of forgetfulness, and backtracks when Tenten gives him a pained look. “Or if I go to Kyoto.”

“You’d come?” Tenten kicks herself for sounding so eager. Sai blinks, and then nods his head.

“I’m an orphan. There is nothing to tie me down.” Sai looks ahead. His face is stormy and his eyes are dark.

His voice is so impossibly lonely, that Tenten reaches out and grabs his hand. Sai looks down at their hands, before looking to Tenten with a nod. He squeezes her hand, and Tenten feels a flutter in her gut.

“Me too.” She smiles at him. “I didn’t even know I had an aunt until I got back from the war.” She lets go of his hand, and they walk in silence for the next half hour. As the train station comes into view, Tenten can see Sai frowning. She looks up at Sai, waiting for him to speak.

“There is this feeling I can’t name. I felt it before I left the house to go to the grocery store, and it is coming back now, the closer we get to the train station.” Sai sounds on edge, and he isn’t looking at her.

“Can you describe it?” Tenten looks at him with concern, but he continues to look away. “Look, I can’t help you out if you don’t tell me how you’re feeling.” Sai sighs, and scrunches his eyes up even though they are walking. She grabs his arm before he walks into a tree. Without skipping a beat, he simply starts talking.

“It is cold and empty. It makes me incredibly restless. I just want to be with another person when it comes over me.” They stop in front of the train station, ten minutes early. Tenten turns to look at Sai, and he can tell the feeling means something bad by the look on her face.

“Loneliness. Sai, you’re lonely, aren’t you?” she looks up at him, her hands on her hips. Sai looks down, turning the word over in his head. _Lonely, huh_. Tenten takes her backpack off, and fishes out a piece of paper and a pen. She writes a few lines, and then hands it to Sai.

“You don’t have to stay here if you’re lonely. This is my aunt’s address and phone number.” Thinking, she snatches the paper back, and turns it over, adding a few lines. She holds the paper up to Sai. “This is my aunt’s café, including the address and phone number. I’ll be working there over the next year.” Sai takes the paper, and tucks it into his pocket. He looks at her with an inscrutable expression.

“What about Lee?”

“What about him?” Tenten is surprised that Sai even knew they were friends. She forgot how observant he is.

“He is your friend, isn’t he?” Sai asks, looking uncertain. “I think he will miss you.” Tenten looks away.

“He’ll understand why I left.” She uses the back of her hand to wipe her cheek. She refuses to cry in front of people. Her reluctance to reveal her own vulnerability is a vestige of her childhood as an orphan. In the same vein, Tenten refuses to admit that she needs other people. It’s why Neji liked her. Things like need and dependence could be left unspoken in their relationship.

“He will be lonely.” Sai blinks, and Tenten sighs, finding another piece of paper. She re-writes her address and phone number. She pauses, and scrawls a message on the back of the paper. She pauses and pulls a kunai from her bag. Taking the pink ribbons from around each bun, she ties one ribbon around the handle of the knife, and wraps the note around the blade, securing it with the other ribbon.

“Here, give this to him. Please.” Tenten hands Sai the gift. “It was one of my mother’s. The note is to tell him that I will come get it, one day.” She blinks, and Sai smiles.

“Or he can find you.”

“Well, that is the subtext, but you might have to point it out to him.” She smiles, and looks to the train station. “I should get going.”

“I’ll stand here.”

“I’ll wave.”

“I’ll wave back.” Sai smiles, and Tenten looks at him, right into his eyes. She smiles, and gives him a hug. Pulling back, she picks up her bag and hoists it onto her back.

“Please come visit.” Her voice is small, and then she nods and turns away. She gets through the ticket collector and boards the train. Looking out the window, she sees a lone figure standing at the entrance.

Excited, she taps the window and even though she can’t see his eyes, she knows he sees her. When the train leaves, she waves, frantically, and the figure returns it. She doesn’t know Sai well, but he is the only one who could see her off.

2.

Sai doesn’t know when they all grew up, but he wishes that they hadn’t. Team Seven is sitting in a booth at the local bar all the shinobi hang out in. Sasuke sits across from Sai, with Sakura at his side. Sasuke is a valuable weapon, and Naruto successfully argued that his life be spared. So they go on outings like this to reintegrate Sasuke into the village. Sakura and Sasuke are trying to make their relationship work, but it doesn’t look like it is going well. They don’t ever seem like they are together. Sasuke always has a caustic remark and Sai can tell that he hasn’t apologized to Sakura for nearly killing her.

Sai doesn’t know why Naruto and Sakura have decided to forgive Sasuke for the multiple attempts he has made on their lives, but no one listens to him when it comes to relationships. Naruto is drinking a beer beside Sai. He is going to be Hokage one day. He has proven himself to be the strongest ninja in Konoha. Sasuke is in the same league, and possibly Shikamaru. Neji was up there, but he is dead now.

Sai also puts Sakura up there, because she is the real genius on their team. She can work with anyone, and she was trained by Tsunade. Sai wishes she could see herself the way that he does. She wouldn’t put herself through the perpetual disappointment of dating Sasuke.

Hinata told Naruto she wanted to remain friends after one date. They all figured it had something to do with Neji, but no one has worked up the courage to ask Naruto directly. In a week he has become the kind of person who glares and drinks. Neither Sasuke or Sai are talkative. Sakura just stares at the table.

By all accounts, they should be happy. Sasuke is home to stay, Naruto is a war hero and Sakura has proven herself to be an integral part of the team. Sai has a family. All four of them got what they wanted from the war.

But here they are, drinking instead of talking to each other. Sai looks around the bar, and all the other shinobi are happy, celebrating their survival. People will come up to their table and congratulate them, and Sakura and Naruto briefly come alive before slipping back into despair.

The truth is that Sai is still lonely. After Tenten left, he is lonelier than he has ever been before. The closest he has been to another human being was Lee. Sai had delivered the kunai the next day, and Lee grabbed him, crying. It had been awkward and nowhere near as pleasant as spending an hour and a half with Tenten. He had thought about calling her, but he always talked himself out of it. He hadn’t been able to speak privately with Sakura, since she was always with Sasuke and Sai, to be frank, doesn’t care for Sasuke one bit. 

Sai leans back, crossing his arms. He has been thinking about Tenten since he saw her waving at him. He even carries that stupid picture of Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji around, in case he runs into her, even though he knows that he won’t see her.

“I saw Tenten before she left the village,” Sai says, looking up to see how his teammates react. Sakura nods, tracing a circle onto the table top.

“Oh yeah. I processed her leave of absence.” Sakura looks at Sai with a sly look, “I didn’t know you two were friends, Sai.” She teases the way she used to, before Sasuke returned.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” Naruto turns to Sai, totally oblivious to Sakura’s insinuation.

“Kyoto. She is staying with her aunt.” Sai wants to talk about her more. The girlish ribbons she wears in her hair. Her Sailor Moon face. The fact that she loved Neji the way he loved Ino. He carries her note in his pouch, and he will sometimes take it out to look at her loopy writing.

“She was nice,” Sasuke says, and they all look at him.

“You didn’t know her,” Sakura scoffs, and Naruto squints at Sasuke.

“You remember her?”

“She’s cute,” Sasuke replies, with blatant disregard for Sakura. If Sai were an ordinary man, his mouth would twitch. “She was Neji’s girlfriend, wasn’t she?”

Sai is convinced that Sasuke is an emotional sadist, because there is no way that he doesn’t know how Naruto feels about Hinata and, by extension, how he feels about being the person Neji sacrificed himself for in front of her. Sasuke had chosen their side in the war, but Sai doesn’t think he fully recovered from the Uchiha massacre or his time with Orochimaru.

Naruto winces and sips his beer. Sakura leans away from Sasuke, who remains indifferent.

“When do you think everything will be normal?” Sai asks the table. They all look at him like he has asked a ridiculous question.

“Normal?” Sakura asks, eyebrows raised.

“You know, our happy ending. That is to be expected after surviving a big war, right?” Sai feels the familiar clawing of desperation in his stomach. Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke are now looking at him like he is dense.

“Have we ever had a happy ending?” Sakura asks, crossing her arms. Naruto nods in her direction, a mouthful of beer preventing his reply.

Sasuke laughs. A real mean, low laugh. He knocks his knuckles against the table. “Sai, this _is_ the happy ending.” Sakura throws money on the table and leaves without saying anything. After swallowing his beer, Naruto sighs and rubs the space between his eyebrows.

“Do you have to be such an asshole, Sasuke?” Naruto reaches into his pouch, and after throwing money on the table, gets up and follows Sakura. Sai and Sasuke watch him chase her down, and the ensuing confrontation they have on the street. Sakura waves her arms, yelling and crying, because Naruto is the one she has always been the most comfortable expressing her feelings to. He is reasoning with her, trying to get her to go get something to eat so it isn’t just four cups of sake in her empty stomach.

Sai turns away from the scene, and looks Sasuke right in the eye. “Is this us, happy?”

Sasuke shrugs, and grabs Naruto’s left over beer and chugs it.

3.

Tenten flips the sign over to ‘CLOSED’, and turns the deadbolt. It is eleven o’clock at night, and she has been at work since noon. Her aunt reassures her that she doesn’t need to work so hard. She encourages Tenten to explore the city or read a book. _Just relax_.

But Tenten was always trained to be better than who she was the previous day. So she gets up early and goes to bed late. She goes on a run in the morning, followed by a shower and breakfast, and then she will read or clean until she goes to work at the café.

Rin is a painter. She wears artsy clothes, lots of loose blouses and trousers and weird earrings and red lipstick. She keeps her hair up in various buns and twists. Rin has an affinity for bright colours; the living room is peach, the kitchen coral and the dining room is mint green. Her studio is in the converted garage. There are three bedrooms, although one is an office. Her aunt has a cute calico named Mei, who is chunky and sleeps by Tenten’s head at night

She was trained in the Leaf Village, but there is no sign of her adolescent career anywhere. Tenten supposes she keeps her secrets in the garage or her bedroom. She doesn’t pry, so she doesn’t ask about their family.

Rin makes really good omelettes every morning, and she makes sure there is a bento in the fridge for when Tenten gets home, knowing her niece won’t eat on the job. Her aunt will pat her buns and tell Tenten that she looks like Sailor Moon. Tenten blushes because it reminds her of Sai.

Tenten heads back towards the closet where they keep the cleaning supplies. She had managed to wipe everything down in the last half hour, but she needs to go over it all again with disinfectant. When it’s quiet in the café, she often thinks of Neji. She tries not to, because it feels shitty. He was her best friend, and he really did deserve so much better.

He should have gotten everything he had ever wanted. After depressing herself, she wonders what Lee is doing. He hasn’t reached out and neither has she. She hopes he is okay, wherever he is. As she wipes the counter, she permits herself to have one thought about Sai. She wouldn’t call it a crush, but it is a little past infatuation. Her aunt tells her that she should go and try dating, but Tenten prefers her head.

Tenten is sweeping the floor, whistling to herself. She is almost done her nightly routine. After sweeping, all she needs to do is put the dishes away, and she was good to go. Tenten starts sweeping a little faster, thinking about how cozy bed will be. She has decided to permit herself to sleep in, since tomorrow is her mandatory day off.

There is a loud knock at the door, and she jumps, dropping the broom. She looks over at the door, and sees a familiar pale face. Tenten runs to the door, unlocking it and pulling Sai in,

“How did you get here?” Tenten is trying to restrain her excitement. She had wanted to see him again. Sai looks down at her, smiling.

“I took the train.” He set his bag on the floor, looking around the café. “Sorry, I should have asked if I could come visit.” Sai looks into her eyes, and Tenten smiles.

“It is no trouble. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?” Tenten walks over to the counter. Sai looks at his options, confused by every single one. He remains silent. Tenten can watch the gears turning in his head, so she switches her approach.

“What do you feel like?” leaning over the counter, she peers up at Sai.

“I’m not hungry, and I am a little cold,” Sai puts a finger to his chin. “Something sweet might be nice.” Tenten nods her head and gets to work.

Sai watches her work, curious. Her back is to him, and he can see her shoulders moving under the cotton of her shirt. Sai is mesmerized, even though he isn’t looking at much. When she turns around, she doesn’t notice that he has been looking at her. She puts a lid on a paper cup, and pushes it over the counter. Sai looks down at the cup, and back up at her.

“Try it,” she goes back to the counter to finish cleaning. Sai takes a sip, and the drink is warm and sweet. It tastes creamy, and it is a little spicy. Sai likes it. When Tenten turns around, he is happily sipping it. Despite being a trained killer, there is something incredibly boyish about the way he moves around the world.

“Do you like it?” Tenten asks.

“Yes. What is it?” Sai takes another sip while Tenten puts the mugs back in a cabinet.

“Hot chocolate. It is a Western thing.” Tenten, after unloading the dishwasher, puts the dishes she had used to make Sai’s drink in it. Putting it on for a quick wash, Tenten turned back to her broom. Sai watches her as she went to the far end to start sweeping.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Sai asks. She shakes her head. A few seconds tick by before Tenten pauses.

“Sai,” Tenten starts, “why did you come here?”

Sai puts his drink down. He pauses, and looks inside himself for the answer. There is a feeling that blossoms in his chest when he looks at Tenten. At the same time, he has a feeling that _to find my happy ending_ would be presumptive. So he looks at her with his usual blank expression.

“I don’t know. Sorry if that isn’t satisfying.” He smiles and sips his drink. Tenten nods her head, because, coming from him, that is an serviceable answer. She keeps sweeping, and when she yawns Sai feels a tenderness he didn’t think possible. He shakes his head quickly, before breaking their silence.

“You’re very kind. Did you know that?” Tenten looks at Sai with a funny expression, before sweeping up the dirt onto a dust pan and dumping it outside. She puts the broom away, and ties up the garbage and takes it out back. The whole time, she doesn’t answer Sai’s question.

When she comes back in, he is still sitting there, waiting patiently. Tenten is wearing her jacket holding a tote bag.

“I’m not that kind, Sai.” She gestures for him to follow her, and after she turns the lights off and locks the door, she looks up at Sai with a tired smile.

“Yes, you are.” Picking up his bag, he gestures for her to take the lead.

4.

Rin is asleep when they get home. Tenten gestures to her mouth for him to remain quiet. She locks the door behind him, and she is so tired that she leads him to her room. Rin is cool, but she wouldn’t react well to a coming downstairs to find a strange man sleeping on her couch. Tenten has no clue where a spare futon would be kept, so they will simply have to bunk together.

Sai sits on the guest bed, looking around. Tenten flips on the light, and he blinks at the pale yellow walls. The bed is large enough for all of Team Ten and then some, so Sai guesses they will just sleep on it. Tenten grabs some clothes and runs into the bathroom across the hall, and he can hear her brush her teeth and wash her face.

When she comes back, she is wearing pink sweatpants and a giant yellow shirt. She looks younger with her hair down. A fat cat walks in behind her, making the hardwood creak. Sai wordlessly goes to the washroom and brushes his teeth, and then changes into the shorts and shirt he wears to bed.

The light is off when he comes back into the room, but the curtains are open and the moon lights up the room. Tenten lies over by the window, with the cat sleeping on her pillow. Sai drops his tooth brush onto the bedside table, and gets into bed beside her.

“The cat’s name is Mei,” Tenten whispers, “are you allergic?” Sai shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling. He thinks about all the things in his life that have led him to this point: leaving Konoha to see the girl who identified his loneliness. It’s funny, how life works.

“You should get some sleep,” he says quietly. She hums a response, too tired to do anything else.

It takes ten minutes, but soon they both fall into the pitch black ink of sleep.

**

The first thing she notices when she wakes up is that the cat isn’t on her pillow. Sitting up, Tenten looks around the room. Sai has made the bed up on his side, and his toothbrush is no longer on the bedside table. Peeking over the end of the bed, she can see that his bag is still by the dresser, which fills her with calm.

She gets up, and as she heads downstairs she can hear her aunt talking, punctuated by Sai’s soft voice. When Tenten walks into the kitchen, she sees Sai standing by the counter, eating an omelette while her aunt hovers over the stove. The cat is balanced on Sai’s shoulder, and every so often Sai will feed Mei some of his eggs.

Rin notices Tenten first, and smiles. “Tenten, I had no idea that you would bring a boy home so soon.” Her aunt wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Rin is similar to Guy, in the sense that they are perfectly comfortable getting down on the same level as people substantially younger than they are.

“It’s not like _that_ ,” Tenten rolls her eyes and heads to the coffee maker. She pulls out a mug from the cupboard above, missing Rin’s pointed eye contact with Sai. He shrugs, rubbing Mei’s chin.

“Leaf ninja don’t come out to Kyoto for no reason,” Rin grabs a plate and puts an omelette on it. She hands it over to Tenten, who has barely poured her coffee.

“Have you thought of asking Sai?” Tenten pouts, setting her plate on the counter. She picks up a pair of chopsticks and pops a heap of egg into her mouth. Sai is content to be a mere bystander to most conversations. Being ignored doesn’t offend him. It is the only way to survive working with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura.

“Tell me, Sai. Why are you here, if not for a mission or to see my niece?” Rin bats her eyelashes. Tenten frowns, for reasons that escape him.

“Tenten told me to visit.” Sai sets his plate down, careful to avoid unbalancing Mei. “That is really the only reason I came here.” Rin grins, looking at Tenten with triumph. Tenten sips her coffee, deciding to ignore her aunt.

Sai looks at Tenten, hunched over her coffee. The mug is eggshell blue, and it goes well with her yellow shirt. Her hair is still down, thrown over her shoulders. She snores in her sleep. When Sai looked at her this morning before heading downstairs, he felt a surge of warmth come over him. It was nice being close to her.

He had changed into his black pants and a green turtleneck. Sakura had bought it for him, insisting that it was too cold for him to walk around with his stomach exposed. Sai didn’t bother explaining the intensive training he had endured that allowed him to tolerate almost any and all physical pain. He wears the shirt when he wants to think of Sakura. It is made of a soft, thick fabric that she said should keep him _warm and cozy_. 

When he had come downstairs, Rin had been expecting him. She had been a ninja, and he and Tenten hadn’t been subtle. Rin had made him breakfast and set the cat on his shoulder, and within minutes he felt more at home then when he was in Konoha. They were just about to start discussing painting when Tenten had come downstairs.

He is looking at Tenten, who he can tell is still sleepy. There is the tell-tale crust on her eyes and the droop in her posture. She and her aunt have moved on to discussing her plans on her day off. She sometimes pinches her lower lip while her aunt tells her about all the places she should visit that Sai can immediately tell Tenten has no interest in exploring.

Tenten will sometimes catch his glance, and she will smile at him. Rin will turn back and look at him, searching his face for something. Eventually, her aunt must go in to work, so she leaves him with strict instructions to make sure Tenten does nothing productive. Rin kisses Tenten on the forehead before waving to Sai, the cat still on his shoulder.

“She likes you,” Tenten says, pouring another cup of coffee.

“She is sweet, but a little heavy,” Sai scratches the cat’s chin, and Tenten laughs.

“I meant my aunt.” Tenten smiles, “but I have to admit that I am a little jealous that Mei seems to like you more.” Tenten walks up to him, looking at the cat. Sai can only look at her as she comes closer. She is just so charming. Even her snores are endearing. It makes Sai question his mental faculties. Beauty is a judgment; but he feels like he is looking at someone who defies that principle. She has a Sailor Moon jawline and plain features and she snores. But Sai still can’t look away. It makes him uneasy, like he has been placed under a spell.

“You’re unlike anyone else I know.” Sai says coolly, tilting his head. Tenten snorts, rubbing Mei’s cheek.

“I’m average, Sai.” Tenten looks right at him, and she catches him studying her features.

“No, you’re not.” Sai holds eye contact, and she sees a flicker of emotion pass over them. “You are cute, even when you snore.”

It takes Sai a second to realize that he has said something wrong. Tenten leaps away, a hand covering her nose and mouth.

“Was it bad?” her voice is almost shrill, and Sai tries to figure out what he said to offend her. “You know you can wake me up or push me or whatever when that happens, right?” Tenten looks horrified and embarrassed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Apparently I _snore_ , Sai!”

“Everyone snores, Tenten.” If he knew how to do it in a way that wasn’t uncanny, Sai thinks he would giggle. “I go on missions with Naruto, and he talks in his sleep.”

“But I don’t want to remind you of _Naruto_.” Tenten is now across the kitchen, and her face is pink. Sai tilts his head.

“Who do you want to remind me of?” Tenten sputters in response, and Sai can tell that he has put her in a difficult spot. So he decides to reassure her, like Sakura would. “Tenten, I was trying to say that you are anything but average because your snores were endearing. Comforting, cute even.” Sai takes the cat off of his shoulder and sets her on the ground. When he looks up, Tenten’s head is tilted and she is smiling at him.

“You think I’m cute?” she crosses her arms, and takes a step towards him. Sai feels the heat rush towards his face, kicking himself for reasons he doesn’t quite comprehend.

“You look like Sailor Moon,” Sai shrugs, grateful that Root took his ability to emote in sync with his feelings. He maintains his flat expression, and he catches empty the mug Tenten throws at him. She doesn’t mean to hurt him. She volleys it in a shallow arc and aims at his chest, so she knew he was going to catch it.

“I won’t be the reason Rin loses,” Sai glances down, looking at the chipped mug, “her Hello Kitty mug.” Tenten pours her third cup of coffee without looking at him. Sai considers the possibility that she could actually be upset with him, until she looks over her shoulder at him. She gives him a lazy wink, and walks out the living room.

Sai looks at the empty coffee pot. Tenten is truly a wonder. She snores, drinks hot gross bitter bean water and volleys a mug at him, and Sai begins to miss her immediately after she steps out of the room.

5.

Tenten and Sai start doing various chores together. It could be called their _thing_. Tenten likes to get things done and Sai likes being useful. Rin thinks it is sweet, but she keeps her observations to herself.

Their favourite chore, by far, is grocery shopping. Sai pushes the cart while Tenten loads it. They go in the morning, when it isn’t busy. Even though he has been there for a month, they still aren’t used to buying enough food for three people, so they have to go twice a week. Sai likes the normalcy of it. Back in Konoha, he would go to the grocery store whenever he felt restless or lonely, and just walk up and down the aisles.

It is infinitely more fun to go grocery shopping with another person. You can learn so much about people by what they eat. Tenten and Sai discover that they both hate frozen and canned vegetables. Tenten has never eaten as much tofu as she has while living with Sai. Left to his own devices, his diet is pretty boring. He can’t believe how many different foods she likes. There is always some spice or exotic vegetable or strange noodle that she insists they try.

The ladies at the store are all fond of Sai. He is a handsome young man, polite and courteous. He dutifully follows Tenten around with the cart, checking their list and doodling on the note pad. The real reason for his popularity is that it is so easy to see how sweet he is on Tenten. The women who work there and the older ladies who shop at the same time they do get to watch a love story unfold in front of their eyes.

Neither Sai nor Tenten have picked up on this. They just assume that women like Sai because he is, as Rin would say, _a dish_.

One morning they are standing in line to pay. Sai has unloaded all of the groceries onto the belt, while Tenten is looking at the magazine rack. He smiles, watching her read the covers. Once again, habits he would find contemptible in others are strangely endearing on her.

“Why do you like reading those?” Sai doesn’t bother to hide his amusement.

“How do you know I like them? I could be reading them because they are just there.” Tenten smirks. Every so often she likes to needle at Sai.

“You read them every time we come here.” Sai crosses his arms, eyeing the customer in front of them. She was one of those odious people who buy a bunch of discounted items at once, inconveniencing everyone around in order to secure a deal. Tenten can tell that Sai is growing impatient by the tendon in his neck. She doesn’t want to be caught staring, so she clears her throat.

“I guess it’s because they make me feel normal. Like I have always had a totally pedestrian life here.” Tenten taps her fingers on her arm, while Sai looks over to see if the cashier has made any progress.

“Your hair is too distinct to be pedestrian.” Sai says, not looking back. She still trains hard, so he knows that while she plays at being a civilian, a significant part of her refuses to change. He taps his foot. It is almost their turn.

“Well, it looks best when I do it this way.” He can hear the shrug in her voice.

What Sai really wants to say, is that he could never not see her. She is too distinct, a complete particularity. She is the furthest person from pedestrian that he has ever met. Sai doesn’t know how to say all of this, without having Sakura or Naruto to help him sort out his feelings. So he keeps his mouth shut and hums in response. Tenten glares at his non-answer, but he knows she won’t hold it against him. When it comes down to it, she is too patient with the people she cares about. It’s why she tolerated Neji’s feelings for so long and why she lets Rin get away with not talking about the rest of their family.

Nonetheless, Sai feels a sense of guilt build in his gut for taking the easy way out. He carries more than half of their groceries home as a penance, despite Tenten squawking that she is just as strong as he is.

6.

Tenten takes Sai to a few shrines. It’s a good way to explore the city, and tourist season is over, so they have the shrines more or less to themselves. Sai brings his sketchbook and draws while Tenten walks around, silent.

“I come to these places to talk to Neji,” she says one day. “He always liked meditating. He was more spiritual than he let on.” Sai looks up at Tenten. His expression is blank, without judgement.

“What do you tell him?” Sai asks. Tenten rolls her eyes.

“Why do you assume I’m _telling_ him anything? I could have a question.” Tenten squares her shoulders. “Spirits see all.”

“Well, when you talk about him it never seems like you have any questions for him,” turning back towards his drawing, Sai pencils in a ghost. “It is all certainty, on your end.” Tenten looks away.

“I tell him that he deserved more from life.” Tenten looks back at Sai, with the sad smile he only sees when she talks about Neji. “I tell him he should have just told Hinata. She loves him more than anyone else in this world, more than I ever did.” Tenten sighs, “he tried to kill her. Did you know that, Sai?” Sai simply shakes his head. “He tried to kill her and she still forgave him.” Tenten bites her lip, looking at the trees within the shrine.

“We all deserve a second chance.” Sai continues working on his ghost, who hovers just above a pillar.

“Even Sasuke?” Tenten looks right at Sai, knowing that he doesn’t really like that teammate at all.

“I was supposed to kill him, once.” Sai doesn’t look up. “Naruto and Sakura convinced me not to. But the funny part is that I don’t think Sasuke would have minded being put down. Especially now that he knows the truth of the Uchiha massacre. I imagine we would be at peace with each other.” Sai finishes his ghost, and begins to draw a demon on the roof.

“How many attempts did you make on each other’s lives?” Tenten never understood the bond that held Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke together, and she had been even more confused when they made room for Sai.

“Well, there was the time Naruto and Sasuke had their death match, my failed assassination attempt, “Sai holds up three fingers, “I won’t include the numerous times Sakura beat Naruto and I up, or the one time Naruto and Sasuke charged each other with the chidori and rasengan. Sakura decided to kill Sasuke herself, at one time. But Sasuke is the one that took it the furthest when he went after Sakura.” Sai holds up four fingers, and if she could see his face she would see the dark look in his eyes.

“How did you four survive each other?”

“Well, I don’t think any of us wanted to actually kill the other, “ _with the possible exception of Sasuke_ left unsaid. “It was all circumstantial. Too many cooks.” Sai shrugs, and Tenten looks over his shoulder at his drawing. The demon is on the shrine, digging his hands into the tiles of the roof.

Most of his drawings at the shrines are like this. He will draw the actual shrine, and then add ghosts and spirits and demons. He usually uses ink, but he left that at home today. Tenten thinks it is strange that he does it at the shrine, where the priests could see.

“Why do you paint things in that aren’t here?” she asks. Her tone is curious. Sai looks up at her.

“I thought you believed in the paranormal.” His voice is flat, but Tenten has proven to be remarkably perceptive.

“I believe what I see with my eyes.”

“Eyes aren’t the only way with which one sees the world.” Sai turns back to his drawing, “and who can definitively say that they _aren’t_ here?” he hears Tenten giggle, and watches as she walks ahead of him, going into the shrine. He hangs back to finish his drawing, and is all packed up when she comes back out.

On their way home, Tenten hums and walks ahead, with Sai bringing up the rear. He has a question he has wanted to ask for a while now, and now seems as good a time as any.

“Would you ever return,” he starts, choosing his words carefully, “to live in Konoha?” Tenten stops, and he nearly bowls both of them over. She turns to look at him, a strange look on her face. She had thought about it: returning to Konoha. But she doesn’t know how to go back.

“I don’t know.” She says quietly. Sai tilts his head.

“We are probably missed.” He says quietly. He doesn’t actually know, because there is no way to be totally certain in this world. But he does believe that they are deeply missed, if not by everyone than at least Naruto and Lee.

“Probably?”

“Well, in the absence of knowing one must have faith.” Sai steps out from behind her, and walks ahead. Tenten stares at his back before remembering herself, and jogs to keep up with him.

7.

Sai buys Tenten ice cream for two reasons: the first is she likes it, and the second is that he wants her to think he is kind. So every time they are in the grocery store he throws a tub in the cart. She usually avoids buying it regularly because she eats it so quickly, so it takes her about two weeks to figure out that Sai is ensuring that there is always ice cream in the house.

She has some ice cream every three days, just to avoid gorging and making herself sick. However, Sai still compulsively buys it, and now their freezer is stuffed with ice cream. Rin made a joke about it, but after it was clear that Sai was going to keep buying it, both she and Tenten have started taking cartons to the café for other staff members to take home. One night, after dinner they are sitting on the couch while Sai reads a book and Tenten eats ice cream. It is a beat up copy of _Frankenstein_. Sai bought it from the bookstore down the street from the café, and reads it while Tenten was at work.

He has reread it several times, and he leaves notes in the margins. Tenten takes the spoon out of her mouth, watching him. He gets very quiet when he reads this particular book, and it is impossible to get his attention.

“Sai,” she says softly, nudging him with her foot, “why do you keep buying all this ice cream?” Sai looks up at her, his face neutral.

“Because you like it.”

“Sai, we have so much already,” Tenten taps the spoon on her knee. “You really don’t have to buy anymore.” This is the first time that she has ever stated a need so plainly to someone. Sai blinks at her, before replying.

“But I want you to like me.” Sai says it in his typical flat voice. He doesn’t blush or stutter. He simply states the facts. Tenten fidgets, not looking at him.

“You don’t have to buy ice cream for me to like you. I already do.” Tenten sets her bowl and spoon on the table by them. Sai gives her a weird look, the expression she has come to understand to mean that he is trying to understand something she has said. “Sai, you don’t have to do anything for me to want to be with you.”

Sai puts the book down on the coffee table, looking away from Tenten. “Do you believe that everyone deserves a happy ending?” Tenten scoots closer to him on the couch, resting a hand on his arm.

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you think we have to work for it?” Sai turns to look her right in the eye. Tenten swallows, because he is impossibly beautiful up close.

“What do you mean, work for it?”

“Well,” Sai scratches his jaw, “do you think people have to earn their happy ending, as opposed to it being handed to them?” Tenten doesn’t understand the train of thought, but she trusts that Sai has it all figured out in his head. He just needs her help rearranging it.

“No, I don’t think people should have to work to be happy.” Tenten bites her lip, “and to be honest, even if you work hard you don’t necessarily get it.” Sai frowns, dissatisfied with the notion that a happy ending should be a given but was withheld, and that there wasn’t much a person could do to change it.

“So, is the happily ever after something determined at birth?”

“Sai, happiness isn’t static. It comes when you least expect it.” Tenten pulls away, uncomfortable with their conversation. She had tried explaining this to Neji, in his more fatalistic moments. He never fully shook himself of his belief, and it had come to pass. So Tenten didn’t really know what she thought anymore.

“In this book, a scientist combines human body parts together, and using electricity, brings them to life. But he realizes he has created a monster, and abandons him. The monster claims that his life would have been different, had he had a creator who loved him. Not only that, there was no one else like him. It was impossible for him to find love.” Sai taps the book two, three times, thinking. “I don’t remember my life before Root. Do you think I’m like the monster, condemned to solitude?” Tenten sees the dots lining up, and she leans back against the couch. The cat comes and plops onto her lap.

“I think it is incredibly monstrous to abandon the person you gave life to.” Tenten picks the cat up, holding Mei close to her chest. “It sounds like the scientist is the real monster, Sai.” Sai nods, but he doesn’t look at her.

“I don’t want to be alone. That is why I buy you ice cream.” Sai stood up, leaning over to take hold of the bowl and spoon. He is halfway to the kitchen when Tenten finally speaks up.

“I won’t let you end up alone.” Sai turns back to her, and Tenten gets up, holding Mei to her chest. Tenten walks up to Sai, and tilts her head up to look at him. “I won’t leave you behind.” Tenten smiles, “but you really need to stop buying ice cream, because we have nowhere to put it.” Sai nods, smiling now that the desperate burden of happily ever after had been lifted from his shoulders.

8.

They are at a shrine when Tenten notices that Sai’s art supplies have been running low. His pencils and pastels are down to nubs, and he only has a few drops of ink. Tenten decides that they will be going to an art supply store on their way home from the shrine. Sai sometimes gets nervous when Tenten takes him to large stores. He feels like he is always being watched on the security camera, and there is no Anbu operative who feels comfortable under any surveillance. Sai says this to Tenten, but she tells him that he needs to remember that they are civilians in a major city. One just accepts all the cameras in public spaces.

The store is huge. There are multiple aisles and the light is bright and artificial. The shelves and floor are various shades of white and grey. Sai finds the it abrasive, but he knows what he needs to find. The store is big and unfamiliar, but he squares his shoulders and follows Tenten through the door.

He kneels down, comparing two pastels, while Tenten stands behind him. She is looking at the oil pastels on the other side of the aisle. “Have you ever thought of trying a new medium, Sai?” Tenten turns to look at his back. It’s cold, so he no longer wears his crop tops, but from sharing a room with him she knows he is one of those special people with dimples on either side of his spine. Sai catches her staring, but his face reveals nothing.

“No, I don’t think there is anything I want to draw that requires a new technique.” Placing a box back on the shelf, he stands up with his selection in his hand. He walks over to the section for ink, Tenten wandering behind him. She can tell he is thinking, so she keeps silent. She is looking at brushes, touching the tips with her fingers, when Sai speaks up.

“Would you like me to keep drawing things that don’t exist?” Sai looks at her directly, his gaze focused. Tenten sucks on her lower lip before answering.

“Isn’t art a magic trick? You take a few raw materials and create something from them.” He breaks his gaze and looks at the ground. Sai exhales the way he does when he is thinking. “I had never considered that before.” Sai looks at the ink in his hand. “I never thought I was bringing something into the world.” His face is inscrutable, and he turns away to pay for his supplies. She can tell this conversation isn’t over, and that she said something that had bothered him.

Her arms are crossed while she thinks about their conversation, playing it over in her head. He smiles at the cashier and she follows him outside. The store is a ten-minute walk from Rin’s house. He doesn’t comment on her silence. When they turn onto the street where they live, Tenten stops and grabs Sai’s upper arm.

“You’re not a parent, you know.” Tenten squeezes his upper arm. “Being an artist isn’t the same.” Sai looks at her with a blank look. His jaw is tense, the only sign that he is in any way upset. He looks into her eyes and exhales. “I want to be a better creator.” He pauses, “I wouldn’t want to make something like me.”

“What do you mean, Sai?”

“I think I was supposed to be a monster. Or, at least, not a human being.” Sai lifts the corners of his lips, but there is an empty glint in his eyes. “Root took my emotions, and if it weren’t for Naruto and Sakura, I don’t think I would have found them again.”

“Sai, you are and always will be a human being. No one can take that away from you.” Tenten still grips onto his arm, and Sai steps closer to her. “You were never a monster.” She says it with the pure confidence of someone who has seen Sai spend time with the cat and walk her home from work and buy her ice cream. Tenten releases his arm and throws her arms around him. In a small voice, Sai asks one question: “are you sure I don’t have to earn my happy ending?”

Tenten holds him closer, and she turns her head so he can’t see the way her eyes water. “I already told you that no one should have to earn their happily ever after.” Everyone they know has had to earn their happy ending. But no one is happy. Neji was simply another death that proved that work did not set you free.

Tenten pulls away first, and taking his hand in hers, leading them home.

9.

She doesn’t know if she does this because of what happened with Neji or because she has started frequenting shrines, but she now dedicates her time to trying to divine the future. She has gotten really into astrology. Sai doesn’t have an opinion on it. He likes it when she reads him his horoscope in the morning. It makes him feel warm inside, and it gives them a normalcy that he has always wanted.

“Sai, did you know that apparently Pisces and Sagittarius aren’t supposed to get along?” Tenten puts a carrot in her mouth, crunching it. Sai, bent over another book, frowns.

“Are you looking for reasons to be unhappy?” he takes a sip of tea. Tenten puts her astrology book down on the table. She doesn’t answer him immediately, so Sai assumes that he is correct. She knocks one, two times on the dining room table.

“I’m not looking for unhappiness. I am simply evaluating the efficacy of the system.” Tenten looks at him, “Ino is a Libra, right?” Sai nods. He doesn’t forget details as much as he would like to. He has already accepted that he will always know Ino’s birthday, the way that he will always know that Shin is his brother. It is the flipside of loving other people: when they are gone, they are always present in their absence.

“You two are highly compatible.” Tenten looks at her book, “Neji was a Cancer; he and I were perfect on paper, too.” Tenten looks at Sai. “I don’t think this system is works.” Sai snorts in response, the way he should have when she bought that book, and Tenten smiles. “So you don’t believe in it?”

“I only believe in what I can perceive for myself.” Sai sits up, putting his book beside his plate. “I don’t like to invite uncertainty in, if I can help it.” Tenten looks at him as he stands up and takes their plates to the sink. She turns to follow his back with her gaze.

“Are you certain about us? That we are friends and not just two people thrown together by circumstance on the whims of a creator?” Sai looks up at her, smirking.

“Aren’t we all thrown together by random chance?” Tenten scowls, and Sai laughs. “You should see the look on your face.” Her cheeks are pink and puffed up, mouth puckered.

“You aren’t answering the question, Sai.” Tenten turns around, and he looks at the back of her neck, and the way the back of her shirt dips down to reveal the tip of her spine.

“Yes, I am certain about us.” Tenten turns back, her mouth, open in a smile. Sai sees all her cute little teeth, and he sticks out his tongue. It is an expression he had been meaning to try, and he is pretty sure that he got it right by Tenten’s laugh and the way she gets up to walk over to him.

**

Of course, there are times when their differences manifest themselves and suddenly, things don’t seem so certain. When they lie down in bed with the window open, listening to the dull noise of cars and the wind, they speak quietly, just for each other. On this night, Tenten rolls on her side to look at Sai. It is nippy, but neither wants to close the window. Sai looks at her, scanning the long curved snake of her side. Tenten holds herself, looking up at him.

“How do you see your future, Sai?”

“With my mind,” and she snorts.

“That isn’t what I meant.” Sai smiles, and looks up at the ceiling.

“The only thing I know for certain is that I will be in Konoha.” Sai looks back at Tenten, forgetting that she didn’t intend to return. She is frowning, and she turns onto her back. Her bangs are mussed up, and her hair pools around her face.

“Have I upset you?” Sai sits up, looking at her. He moves slowly, so that he doesn’t disrupt Mei, who snoozes between them. Tenten sighs, because she doesn’t know how to tell him how she feels, and that she finds herself wanting more from him. She is so certain they want the same thing from each other, but it is moments like this that remind her that nothing between them is certain. She fails to hide the hurt in her voice when she replies, “I’m just bummed that you want to go back there.” Sai’s brows furrow, confused.

“It is our home.” He says this quietly, because his home is wherever Naruto and Sakura are. Before he left, they both promised that they would always think of him. He understands why Tenten wanted to leave, but he cannot comprehend why she won’t consider going back. She crosses her arms, looking up at him. “It’s not my home, anymore.” Sai exhales, and lies back down. He replies with a tense _alright_ , and rolls onto his side, facing away from her towards the bedroom door.

He stares at the door, even when he hears her begin to snore. His irritation, whose origins are unknown to him, won’t let him sleep. It simply sets into his stomach the way that Mei lies between their pillows each night.

10.

Tenten notices that Sai relies on stories to comprehend the emotional worlds of those around them. She doesn’t know if it is a testament towards his progress or her own capacity to understand him. Sai reads scores of books, his favourites being myths, fables and fairy tales. He is always at the library, trying to learn more.

However, his enthusiasm for literature has nothing on his interest in movies. He watches everything and anything. Tenten has sat through several documentaries about pandemics, true crime and social dysfunction. Sai had a brief interest in gangster movies, which was quickly succeeded by a bizarre interest in slapstick comedies. By the time she figures out why he is drawn to a particular genre, he always moves on to the next thing.

His latest obsession is anime. He rents a new one from the library each day, and by the time they are on week two of his binge, they start watching Sailor Moon. Tenten admitted to liking it as a child, so Sai thought she ought to watch it again. They are a few episodes in, sprawled on the couch, when Tenten reaches out to him.

“You should become an animator.” Sai looks down at her, eyes dark.

“You think I would be good enough?” Sai sounds uncertain, doubting himself. She clicks her tongue, impatient.

“You literally make things come to life off the page.” Tenten scoots closer to him. “Of course you are good enough.” Sai smiles, and leans his head back against the couch. They go back to watching the show in silence, and as the night goes on, their bodies get heavier and heavier. They feel like they are one with the couch.

When Tuxedo Mask finally reveals his true identity to Usagi, Sai taps on her arm. Tenten turns to look up at him. “Which do you think are more realistic: love stories or sad stories?” Sai asks her.

“You can’t watch Sailor Moon and say that you don’t believe that love wins.” Tenten says this in a lazy voice, and it hovers between a drawl and a laugh. Sai tuts, as she sits up to stretch. He eyes the way her pelvis tips forward as she stretches up with a yawn. He is about to say something, but she beats him to it. “Despite everything, I still believe in love. I want to watch movies that show how wonderful the world can be.”

“How the world can be?” Sai says it slowly, committing the statement to memory. Tenten nods. “Well, if you have the chance to watch a made up world, why make it sad and tragic when it could be happy?” sighing, she slumps back against the couch. “That’s my two cents.” She turns to look at Sai, who is grinning, reaching for the book he is reading. She doesn’t know why he does this, but she is sleepy and unwilling to move. Sai takes out his bookmark, and holds it to her face.

It is a photograph. Shikamaru, who looks about eight, is blushing. He is dressed like Sailor Mars, while Chouji, who stands beside him, is dressed like Sailor Jupiter. Someone has taken the liberty of using face paint to give them each a tiara with a rhinestone affixed to their foreheads. Shikamaru has his hands up in his shadow jutsu, and Chouji poses with his hands on his hips. Shikamaru’s pose is closer to Sailor Mars, but Chouji is brimming with confidence. Chouji just doesn’t know how to pose like Sailor Jupiter, but it doesn’t matter because of the smile on his face. It also means that that Shikamaru actually paid attention to the show when Ino forced them to watch it.

In the foreground, arms spread wide, is Ino. She beams at the camera. This is further evidence that Ino never had an awkward phase, not like other children. Tenten wonders what it is like to be freakishly beautiful. All members of the Yamanaka clan are this way. It is almost like a bloodline trait; the beauty of the Yamanaka is beguiling. She doesn’t know anyone who could resist Ino’s looks except Shikamaru and Chouji, and even then, it is only because they have known her for so long that her beauty doesn’t alienate them. Tenten takes the picture and covers her mouth to hide her laughter. She looks up at Sai, who winks before turning back to the television.

“Sai.”

“Yes.”

“I think Chouji makes more sense as Sailor Moon than Sailor Jupiter.” With that statement, Sai somehow barks with laughter and Tenten cackles at her own joke. A sound neither had made before.

11.

They have a routine for the days Tenten goes to work. They wake up at 7 AM to do some light training and have breakfast. When they have breakfast Sai always sneaks Mei some egg. Then Tenten showers, usually humming, while Sai brushes his teeth. She likes her showers hot, so he can only see a foggy outline in the mirror from the steam. After they get dressed, they pack up their things for the day and Sai walks her to work. He doesn’t like coffee, so she either makes him wait for tea or hot chocolate, and then he goes to draw or read. When it is rainy, he stays in a corner of the café. Sometimes he writes letters to Sakura and Naruto. Tenten can only imagine what he has to say to them, and they always write him back. He makes sure they both eat on her break, which she secretly adores despite her protests.

Both her coworkers and Sai’s friends have stopped asking whether or not anything is happening. Shikamaru told Sakura and Naruto, on multiple occasions and to his great inconvenience, that Sai wouldn’t be out there for months for a friend. Sakura and Naruto are impatient, because they want to know now, whether than wait for Sai to come back so they can interrogate him in person. Sakura rebutted that Shikamaru would so the same for Ino, but he snorts and replies _that’s different_. Naruto says they should just go to Kyoto, Sai would love to see them, until Shikamaru points out that it is a long way to travel to find out whether or not Sai and Tenten are having sex. Besides, while he is angry that Ino is gone, Shikamaru still chooses her side out of a loyalty beyond words. Tenten’s coworkers just see the obvious: they pay attention to each other on a granular level that can only be the result of romantic interest.

At the end of her shift, Sai will stay in the café while she cleans. She usually makes him another drink before she puts the bar away. Then she locks the door and they walk home. If they are hungry they eat. If not, they just go upstairs. They effortlessly maneuver around the bathroom when they brush their teeth, moving through spaces together with an ease that can only come from spending so much time together.

12.

When Rin leaves for a week-long stay in Tokyo, she closes the café and tells Tenten and Sai to enjoy themselves. She has an art exhibit she would like to see and friends to visit. The forecast for that whole week is thunderstorms. Flooding is predicted.

Tenten hates being cooped up inside. She is patient and tolerant with other people, but when it comes to weather she is fundamentally impatient. She sits by the window and sighs. Sai simply sits in silence, reading. He is comfortable with himself. He holds the book close to his face, and his posture is relaxed. His face is soft, and as she turns to look at him, she feels as if she has never really seen him before.

She had a bit of a crush on him, which she had believed to be more or less supressed, but suddenly it roars inside her. He is handsome. He is kind and creative. He gives the cat eggs and walks Tenten to and from work. He can hold his own on a team with Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke. She looks at him like a girl looks at a boy. Full of wonder and curiosity. Impossibly rose-y glasses.

He knows that she is looking at him but he hasn’t looked up to see her eyes. For if he did, there would be no doubt that she cares for him the same way he does for her. Instead his eyes are focused on the book he borrowed from the library yesterday while Tenten was at work. Tenten eventually gets up and joins him on the couch, staring at him until he looks up and acknowledges her.

When he turns to her, there is something new in her gaze. Her eyes are soft and filled with an emotion he doesn’t need to name to recognize. It is properly storming outside, but he doesn’t notice because he is so entranced by Tenten. It is like they are caught in a trap; there is only one way out, but they can never come back from it. You can never un-fuck a friend.

Tenten moves first. Sai reaches out for her, and she rushes to surround him. Neither expects it all to flow so easily between them. Neji had always been awkward and reluctant, even in bed. For the longest time, Tenten had thought she was the problem; that she wasn’t desirable enough. But Sai shows that it is not the case at all. He doesn’t hesitate as he kisses her jaw while she tries to remember whether or not she is on the pill. She knows her the packet is upstairs but most of her habits are unintentional and thus, beyond her immediate recall.

To her alarm, she finds that she doesn’t even care, cursing the buttoned shirt that Sakura had obviously chosen for him. He looks up at her and sees freckle he never noticed on the top of her sternum. He wants to take this all in, but everything is happening so fast that he doesn’t know which way is up and which is down. Tenten mutters, unbuttoning her own shirt and suddenly, there she is. _She has a cute belly button_ ; he thinks this as he runs his hands over her stomach. She jumps at contact. You can’t turn the shinobi off, and Neji never touched her this way. Sai looks at her, questioning if he ought to move further. She hates waiting, so she kisses him.

With Ino, there was always order. Like they were following the script for when a man loves a woman. Just another version of the same story. But Tenten makes him feel something else. Like he has a chance for something completely different than anything he has ever imagined before.

It never occurred to him that he would want to crawl inside someone and stay there, but that is exactly how he feels about Tenten. He wants her, desperately, to allow him to make her his home. She stands up to take her pants off, but he catches her hands at the waist. “Are you sure?” Tenten nods in response. When he releases her hands, he hooks his hands and pulls her pants down. He puts a hand on each hip, like a frame, and leans back. Her lower abdomen angles out, and she has kept her hair. He can feel her tensing, waiting for him to do something. He kisses her below her belly button, and she giggles. He leans his forehead against her, eyes closed, and she runs her hands though his hair as he fiddles with his own pants. He can feel the pulse of the artery that runs down her core. It is gentle, and he feels like they are connected to the same life force.

She looks down at him, and as she runs her fingers through his hair she feels her chest become impossibly light. Her lower spine is tingling, and she wants Sai to come closer. She fears that he will never be close enough. When she had sex with Neji, it always felt like he was holding a piece of himself back. It didn’t bother her then but it bothers her now when she considers the possibility of Sai doing the same thing. She wants him all. She wants to consume and keep him for herself. She is a selfish, selfish creature but she doesn’t care.

When he figures his pants out, instead of pulling her down, he gently pushes her back. He stands up, and hands on her hips, he sits her on edge of the couch. She feels flushed, because as he spreads her legs she knows what he is about to do. She gets nervous because of the hair, and because no one has put their mouth against her. “You don’t have to,” she pants, because a part of her demands he touches her now, now, _now_. Sai kisses her inner thigh before replying. “I want to, but I won’t if that is what you want.” He rests the side of his head against her thigh, and he resists the urge to smirk when she sputters that she thinks, _no_ , wants him to put his mouth there.

He pulls her to him, and he can feel the tension in her abdomen as she leans back, trying to relax. Sai isn’t paying attention to the time, but he notices when her stomach goes slack and she moves her pelvis against him. Her hands run through his hair, and he can feel rather than hear her orgasm. When he pulls back she is flushed and breathing hard.

They look at each other, Tenten pressed against the couch and Sai sitting at her feet. They don’t say anything, because she sees stars and Sai is staring at her breasts. He is about to ask her if this is it, when she leans forward and kisses him. Her hands are on either side of his face and she slithers off the couch to be closer to him. He pulls her down, and her body yields when he slips into her. If she could, she would wrap her legs around him but his hands make the back of her thighs flutter as he holds her in place. If she could, she would turn herself into a cage, a barrier between him and the world. She wants to protect him. The feeling rises up in her like a wave, forcing her to sit up tall and look at his bruised lips and dazed expression.

When he looks into her eyes something clicks and they begin to move. At first it is awkward, and she hisses when he hits an uncomfortable angle. But then they find the centre, the gravity of their particular moment, and it all sinks into place. She makes a noise in the back of her throat that would make them both laugh if Sai weren’t looking into her eyes and biting his lip. The power is out: the lights weren’t on and they are too distracted to notice the radio being cut off.

She is pretty sure that the moment he hits her cervix is when he finally pulls her down to him, and they are against each other when Sai buries his head in her shoulder and grows rigid against her. She lies on top of him for a moment before wriggling free. She winces at his withdrawal. She flops onto the floor next to him, and they are both quiet.

Her left nipple is still painfully stiff, and he is pretty sure he is going to feel it in his back tomorrow morning. They don’t say anything for a little bit, their total intimacy making it feel impossible to speak. Sai’s face remains flat as he tries to think of the last time he felt this obliterated. He thought he had been in love before, but he has never been shattered. Tenten thinks about the first time she had sex, and all the times before this one. She thinks she may have been doing it wrong the whole time. She feels cracked open, like Sai has torn out a part of her for himself and, in the process, expanded his home in her heart.

Then she starts laughing. It starts as a snort, then a giggle, but eventually it just forces its way out of her mouth and she clutches her hands to her stomach. Sai looks at her, wondering if he should be hurt or not considering he felt like he may have just has a quasi-religious experience, until she speaks. “We sleep in the same bed, but we have sex on the floor,” she gasps, and starts laughing again. Sai remains silent, but he smiles, lying back.

“Did you?”

“Yes. Did—?”

“Yes,” she lets out a big puff of air. “It has never felt like that before.” Sai looks at her, smirking. “I can’t believe I am the first person to go down on you.” He flips so that he now hovers over her. “Who says you are the first?” Tenten sighs against his chin. He kisses her instead of answering, and she takes the opportunity to wrap her legs against his waist and pull him closer to her. He sighs, kissing her ear. “That is not fair,” he mutters, his words tickling her neck. She would laugh, but kissing the side of his face feels better.

She frowns when he pulls back, but her heart drops back into her core when he shifts down, to look up at her from between her legs. He looks at her pointedly, like a soldier waiting to take orders. His eyes concentrate on her chin and the column of her throat as she swallows and nods.

Tenten has never relied on anyone else before, but as she looks down at Sai, and the way he looks at her as he puts his mouth against her, she knows that she won’t live without him. It won’t be a life worth living. Her demons lose their hold as she sighs his name, and everyone from before may as well be a ghost when he enters her for the second time.

13

Tenten doesn’t paint her nails, however, she does file them. She lies down in bed, wearing only a large t-shirt. The material is a thin and aged cotton. It was one of Rin’s old painting shirts. It is a faded forest green, with various splotches all over it. Her nipples stick out, and the bottom of the shirt lies across the top of her hips.

The only thing that has changed since they began having sex is that they are now comfortable being naked with each other. Sai lies beside her, with shorts on and the cat lying on his stomach. Tenten never would have guess that he was a pet person, but she supposes that his affinity for cats shouldn’t be a surprise.

She is filing the nail of her left pointer finger when Sai clears his throat. “Have you ever noticed that it is what people don’t tell you that matters?” Sai continues to pet the cat, and the purr tickles the front of Tenten’s brain. “What do you mean Sai?” she turns to look at him, dropping her file down to her side. She is genuinely curious, because she wants to know everything about him. The idea that he withholds any piece of himself wounds her beyond words.

“It is that the things people don’t say are what usually matter. I learned this from Ino; she always _liked_ my art or _loved_ me, but she never told me about Berlin until she decided to break up with me. She never shared anything important until she decided how it would play out.” Sai has never spoken about Ino before, and Tenten is torn between jealousy and curiosity. She knows they both have pasts, but she wishes she could go back and unweave time knowing what she did now. Even though she still doesn’t know if she wants to let go of Neji’s ghost. “Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto never talk about what matters either. Sakura never talks to Naruto or I about the fact that Sasuke tried to put the chidori through her heart. Naruto won’t talk about Hinata. Sasuke never talks about anything.” Sai looks at Tenten. “Is your experience any different?”

Tenten crosses her right ankle against her left thigh. She knows she leaves herself open, which is why she crosses her legs like in this manner. She hums for a moment. “What do we not tell each other?” Tenten looks at him, and his expression is vulpine. It is clever, that he doesn’t ask her directly for the information he wants. It must be a trick he learned in Root.

“We never talk about our families, Ino or Neji.” He turns back to the cat, “not in the ways that matter.”

“You have a brother and I have an aunt. Neither of us knows our parents or any of our other relatives.” Tenten picks her file up and returns to her nails. The edge of the one on her pointer is uneven. “And do you really want to know more about Neji?” Sai is someone who relentlessly pursues information. It was his job in Root. To infiltrate and gather intelligence. This compulsion to know everything has crossed over into his relationships. He can still recall Ino’s favourite childhood book, the food she doesn’t like and her favourite stories of her father. Loving someone is wanting to know all you can. To know them on a granular level, down to the last atom.

Which is why he can find Tenten so frustrating. She doesn’t give up her secrets, or appears to even know that she has them. But she demonstrates her love, and Sai feels like she has trained him to love differently. Thanks to her, he now knows that love is an action; _this_ , he will never say to her.

“I want to know what you don’t want me to know about your feelings for Neji.” Sai says this like it is the most casual thing in the world. Like he has asked Tenten for nothing, instead of a piece of her soul. Tenten looks up at the ceiling, biting her lower lip. She is still loyal to Neji, and she knows that this loyalty is precisely what Sai is testing. The problem is that she doesn’t know the answer he is looking for.

“You know, it really wasn’t fair how things ended for Neji.” She blows the dust from a nail.

“You keep saying that, but you have only ever gestured as to why.” Sai moves the cat to the pillow, and rolls on his stomach so that their sides are flush. “Why do you feel guilty?”

“Guilty?” Tenten repeats, narrowing her eyes. Sai nods. Tenten closes her eyes, deciding against asking why he thought guilt was the right word. She doesn’t feel guilty. It is closer to regret; for not being a better friend. For not being there to stop him. For not listening to him, for failing to get him listen to himself. “He shouldn’t have died the way he did, like an animal. He should have had the chance to tell Hinata that he was in love with her.” Tenten opens her eyes, and moves her head so she can look into Sai’s eyes. They are black, the opposite of Neji’s milky white. She wonders: if she had another hour, what would she say to Neji? She does want to release him from her heart. It is selfish to keep a piece of him for herself. She needs to allow him to be at peace.

“It’s funny, because I loved him so much, and for the longest time I thought I was loving him the right way. Before I broke up with him, I refused to acknowledge that he didn’t want me the same way. Then one day something changed, and I realized too late that I needed to make him free. If I had always loved him the way I did in that last week, I would have allowed him to be free. Maybe then he wouldn’t have chosen to die.” Tenten blinks, trying not to cry. “He didn’t have to die to save Naruto and Hinata. He chose to. He had been caged all his life and didn’t know what to do with freedom. That is what I regret: that in being with him, I simply bound him to myself. I didn’t protect his freedom, the way I should have.” Tenten turns away from Sai, but she can still feel his breath on her shoulder, despite her shirt.

“Did you love him?” Sai asks her directly. Tenten looks at him like he has grown two heads.

“I loved him. So much so that I wanted to have his babies,” Sai makes a confused face, which prompts Tenten to laugh. “Haven’t you ever thought about having children?”

“No, I never have thought about it,” Sai looks like Tenten has told him that Earth is flat and Mars isn’t real. “I was in love with Ino, but I never thought about having her—“

“Babies?” Tenten says with a shit eating grin. She just wants to hear Sai say the word.

“Sure, babies.” He snorts, turning onto his side so he can put his hand on her stomach. He taps his fingers gently. “I was always ambivalent about children, when Ino brought it up.” For all of Tenten’s talents, she doesn’t register his use of the past tense.

“How could you not be, after the childhood you had?” She puts the file on the bedside table, and takes the hand on her stomach into both of hers. “You can tell me about it, if you want to.” Sai looks uneasy.

“You don’t want to know more about Ino?”

“What is there to know? You were in love with her, but you never pictured a future with her.” Tenten looks at their hands. “That’s what it means when you don’t think about having children, for me, anyways.” Sai’s face returns to neutrality. He has gotten better at naming his emotions, but he still isn’t comfortable talking about them.

“I don’t think I will ever want to talk about my childhood,” he says. She nods.

“We can leave it unsaid,” she smiles, “I don’t need to know your secrets.” The way she lifts her eyebrow suggests that she knew his game all along.

“But I do think I want to have children.” He smiles at her, and her face goes red.

“What has changed?” Tenten acts nonchalant, wrapping her hands around his, avoiding eye contact. Sai smiles before replying: “I have.”

14

When you meet someone, there is no way to predict how you will know them years down the line. Tenten can’t remember the first time she met Sai. It must have been back before Asuma died, but she fails to conjure the precise memory. One day he simply appeared. She had been in love with Neji. She couldn’t have known that in two years Neji would be dead, she would leave Konoha and Sai would be the love of her life.

Sai fills a gap that she didn’t know existed within herself. Even with Neji, she always believed that she was a whole person. Sai challenges the hypothesis. She has never felt more herself than she was with him. She likes him even when he gets on her nerves. She sees the rest of her life and he is by her side. She hates to rely on anyone, but she cannot see herself with anyone else. Previously, she always felt like she was trying to make her love real; to prove that it existed in the world, independently from her. With Sai, the feeling had simply taken root. Her future with Sai existed outside of her heart, in the actual world. She sees it when they wash the dishes together, and when he pushes the cart for her at the grocery store.

She lay back on the bed, yawning. She had chosen to wear a dress today. It is white cotton, and when he saw her, Sai said she was unrecognizable with the smile on his face. Rin had clapped, saying it was a nice change. Tenten was in a sunny mood, and so it felt appropriate to wear. The dress flutters to her mid-calf and the waist was nipped in. She walked around downstairs, but had come back up here after deciding to read in bed. She holds a book to her face but she can still sense Sai coming through the bedroom door.

He lingers there, arms crossed, looking at her. The sun comes through the window, bright and yellow. Tenten lies on her side of the bed, reading a book. She isn’t much of a reader, but it is one of his habits that has rubbed off on her. It’s a book of love poems; he had read it while Tenten was at work last night. She had been re-reading it, as if to commit to memory. He memorizes each of her annotations rather than the poems themselves. So much interest in the generative possibilities of love; it makes him tingle. Like he found a hidden door within himself, and he had finally gotten in to see a sunlit room, empty and secret and waiting to be filled.

“I know you’re standing there.” Tenten breaks the silence, putting the book beside her and raising herself up on her elbows. He can tell she isn’t wearing a bra, and while he has gotten better at not blurting out the first thing to pop into his mind, he muzzles himself and looks back up at her face. He walks in to the room, back straight and strides long. He walks to her side of the bed and she instinctively moves her legs over. He sits in their crook, like water in a cove. She looks at him expectantly. He is wearing a cropped shirt, and she gazes at his stomach when he stretches over to pick up her book. She can tell from his smile that he had read it. Good. She had left it for him to find. “Did you like the book?” Tenten says innocently. Sai looks right at her, and she can tell he chooses to look inscrutable.

“It is interesting.” His words are calculated to get a reaction from her. Her lips twist.

“That’s vague.” And not the answer she was hoping for. Sitting up, she puts her hand out for the book. Sai eyes her hand, but doesn’t give the book back. She knows it is a game, but she isn’t good at strategy; she can’t see the point in his maneuvers.

“I found your annotations illuminating,” Sai puts the book on the windowsill, just out of her reach.

“How so?”

“It’s intriguing that you are so interested in, how does Neruda put it? ‘You and I/ alone upon the earth/ to begin life.” Tenten’s heart gets stuck in her throat, and for a few seconds, she is afraid that her love has pushed Sai away from her. But when her panic ebbs, she sees the curve of his lower lip and the soft black of his eyes, and she is called forward to him. He fills the gaps, and if, God forbid, he was to leave, there would be a lacuna, a cavity, a physical and real absence in her soul that no other person could fill. She doesn’t believe in soul mates but she would like to. Sai, on the other hand, believes in free will. And in every life time, he would choose her, over and over.

He pulls away and she leans back, opening her legs for him. He pushes her skirt up, and when he sees her underwear he sighs and pitches forward. Both her hands on his face, then moving to remove his top and then back to his face again. A hand under her skirt and up her thigh to hip. She wants to do this quickly; she wants him to be impatient and wrinkle her nice dress. It’s the only reason she put on underwear this morning; to stretch out this moment, to make him snap.

What is the nature of happiness? Sai has asked himself this since he met Naruto and Sakura, and before this moment he had concluded that it was a state of being independent of another person. Sasuke was back and they were all miserable. Ino had given him a baseline. He was never unhappy but he also felt like he was going through the routine of what he thought love was supposed to look like. A repetition of all the people who had come before them. But with Tenten; he knows that she makes him _happy_.

Even when she does annoying things like putting on underwear despite knowing he was going to take it off in a few hours. He throws them away, and unzips his pants. He can tell by her face that she isn’t in the mood for foreplay; that she just wants him, and she doesn’t care about her own orgasm. He asked her about this once, and she said that sometimes it was enough just to be close to another human being. That there is a pleasure in being vulnerable and open that she finds rewarding in and of itself. Between them, there is no score to settle. This is enough.

His hand anchors her hip and she is slick for him. She grunts and then whines, and he comes down to her. The thin straps of her dress have fallen off of her shoulders. Her nipples are sticking out against the bodice of her dress, but neither of them care, and she enjoys the friction.

His face is in her neck and she is looking at the ceiling, but she is imagining the sky, the great beyond opening, and he is the one thing pinning her in place, keeping her from falling. He groans and she chokes her own moan back, and tightening her legs around him.

She thinks about what Rin said that she and Sai ought to make a real go of it. Tenten kept it to herself, because she thought they were doing that exact thing. But in this moment, where it is enough to be close but she is somehow sparking up, she understands what Rin meant. What would it be like to make this real? They never talk about their relationship in direct terms, and while she doesn’t regret having him inside her it occurs to her that she wants more than all of him. She wants a definite future, a clear path. She wants to know that he is as committed to her as she is to him. She wants assurance that she would leave an irreparable gap if she were to leave. Even though it’s a selfish wish, she wants to know that she is special to him too.

He rocks into her, and he feels lost in the sense and feel and smell of her, when she puts a hand on his chest to break his rhythm. He frowns, wondering if he hurt her. Her eyes are focused on his face, and her mouth is soft. She is breathing hard, so she catches her breath before speaking. “What are we doing here?” Tenten panics when Sai’s eyebrows furrow as he searches for the question and the answer. She knows perfectly well that he is buried in her, and he has a feeling she wouldn’t like a statement of the obvious. He looks down at her face, and against his own training, he says the first thing that pops into his head.

“We are in love,” he looks down at her, and her face is inscrutable. Her features scramble in his brain, and he panics, wondering if he has misinterpreted something. He still does that, from time to time.

“I’m supposed to tell you that,” Tenten squeaks, and she rubs her hand over his heart. Her features straighten out, and he can see the smile bloom across her face.

“Was I presumptuous?” Sai licks his top lip out of habit. Otherwise his face is blank. She wonders if she should find it chilling, like he is lulling her into a sense of false security. But then an emotion cracks through, and she sees the uncertainty in the way he holds his breath. She wraps her legs even tighter around his waist, and her reply is simple and the easiest thing she has ever said. “No.”

She wants to be his home, his safe place, and now she knows he wants the same thing to. He drives himself into her and holds her close while she pants against his jaw. _I can take it_. He bumps into her cervix, and if she weren’t anticipating this since she woke up and chose to wear a dress, she would be in a world of pain. On the other hand, she knows that he would never have entered her like this if she weren’t wet.

The beginning of an orgasm sparks in her belly, and she runs a hand down between them, and he changes his angle and picks up his speed to help her out, to have her reach a place that he cannot. _Please_ , she says, and he goes even faster, and when she sputters he bites into her neck and allows himself to finish. They are both feeling raw, so they lie there, Sai on top of her like a shield and her legs like a cage. She wraps her arms around him, stroking his back.

“I should move,” he mutters into her neck. She wants to ask him to wait, that she isn’t ready for it to be over just yet. He pulls out slowly, and lets out a low hiss right before he is fully out. He rolls onto his back beside her. Her dress is still hiked up, and it is wrinkled and sweaty. Just the way she wanted it. Gross.

He doesn’t bother adjusting himself either. He hasn’t thought about what he said earlier, because for him it had been self-evident. One of the benefits of having to learn social etiquette later in life. He hasn’t acquired the hang ups of others.

He meant what he said. They are in love. Love is what they are doing. He made his choice when he bought the ticket to Kyoto. Although it was the choices of others who has pushed him along. Ino had chosen to break up with him and move to Berlin. Tenten had chosen to break up with Neji, who in turn had chosen to die. Tenten had decided to move to Kyoto the same night he had stepped out to buy oranges he didn’t need from the grocery store. Perhaps there was divine will. Sai would prefer god given loneliness to the possibility of their paths never crossing.

But in the end, he doesn’t think he believes in the divine. He only has the choices of himself and others to thank for this feeling of completion. Tenten moves over to be close to him, and he welcomes her warmth. He wraps an arm around her shoulders as she turns to look up at him.

“Do you ever think that it is weird that we got together? Like, out of everyone?” Sai doesn’t like the use of the word _weird_ , but he knows that she really means random. Which is what the results of a collection of choices always are. Unpredictable and random.

“What do you mean?” asking the question only to confirm for himself that weird wasn’t pejorative, even though he already knows that isn’t the case.

“Well, I just think that out of all our friends, we are a pretty unexpected couple.” She puts an arm around him, and he can see her bare hip over her head.

“Free will is a funny thing, isn’t it?” Sai kisses her forehead, and she lets it go. He is grateful for it. For if there was a god, or a divine force in the world, he and his friends had all been put through too much pointless suffering to forgive. It isn’t a discussion he wants to get into, because it would necessarily include the possibility that they would never have chosen each other, and he never wants to entertain the possibility that they could ever be separated.

15

It is Rin who answers the door when Naruto and Yamato come to collect Sai. He only went on vacation, and his six months are up. She immediately knows who they are and why they are here. Sai and Tenten had just started breakfast, and Rin invites Yamato, who recognizes her, and Naruto, who is clueless, in. She closes the door behind them and follows them into the kitchen.

Naruto chirps with delight. He hasn’t seen Sai in months, and everything in Konoha has changed. Sai looks like he had swallowed one of his chopsticks, and Tenten’s face is frozen. Yamato hangs back and turns to Rin. “I didn’t know you were still alive.” His eyes are narrow, but she is impervious. They both know about the tattoo on her arm that she keeps hidden. When they last spoke, he had been a child. Now he is a man. Rin smirks. “That’s generally what is supposed to happen when one fakes their own death.” Yamato frowns. “You haven’t told them that you were in Root, have you?” Rin shakes her head, but shows her tongue to reveal that the seal is no longer there. He shows his own tongue, and she whispers, “So, it’s true.” Now that their vile leader is dead, it was safe to come out of hiding. Everyone in her class was long dead, and the rest were her underlings. He had no idea that she and Tenten were even related.

They stand at the door to the kitchen, watching the moment Sai and Tenten realize why Naruto is really there. “Sai was in Root too, wasn’t he?” Rin looks to Yamato, who is not known for lying. She has ten years on him. He had mourned her, and he hasn’t allowed himself to experience the full emotional impact of realizing she had been in Kyoto this whole time. She wears cherries in her ears and bright lipstick, but she has the same fluid walk and sharp eyes. Her technique had been the predecessor of Sai’s own scrolls. She goes to pour him coffee, not waiting for Yamato to answer.

Naruto practically wiggles with excitement. He thumps an unprepared Sai on the back, causing him to nearly spit out his food at Tenten. She leans back, giving Naruto a look of disdain that he chooses to ignore.

“I haven’t seen you two in forever,” Naruto sits beside Sai. “So, are you two…” he gestures with his hand, and Tenten’s blush is the only answer he needs. He grins, “Sasuke owes me dinner when he comes back to Konoha.” Sai turns to Naruto, ignoring the fact that his relationship had been the subject of at least one bet.

“Sasuke was allowed to leave Konoha?” Sai’s emotions are usually difficult to discern, but both Naruto and Tenten hear the irritation in Sai’s voice. Naruto wilts, and Tenten leans towards him.

“What happened, Naruto?” Tenten eyes Sai, who turns back to face his plate of food. Sai’s eyes are hard, and this is the closest she has seen him to looking murderous. Sai had never forgiven Sasuke for trying to put the chidori through Sakura’s heart. The fact that he would leave her, again, makes Sai absolutely livid. His features remain expressionless, but it is because the anger in his heart threatens to overwhelm him.

“Well, Sakura kicked him out, and Shikamaru decided to send him after Hinata,” Naruto looks at Tenten, “so they are in Florence while Ino is in Berlin.”

“Sakura moved to America—Chicago.” Yamato’s voice interrupts as he walks over to the table, holding a cup of coffee. Sai looks from Naruto to Yamato.

“You let her leave the village?” Sai is dumbstruck. Everyone is better off without Sasuke, but Sakura is a valuable asset. She is Tsunade’s top apprentice. She, like Shikamaru, can work with everyone. She is the true genius of Team Seven. She is Sai’s closest friend. Sai feels bereft. He wants to throw up.

“Tsunade found her a job at a university there. Apparently she is working on the cure for cancer,” Naruto thumps his chest with pride. “I spoke to her on the phone before coming here.”

“Did she make it there okay?” Sai looks worried, and Yamato smiles. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She didn’t want you to worry, so I just forwarded your letters to each other.” Naruto smiles, “pretty slick, huh?” Sai frowns.

“She seems happy,” Yamato sips his coffee. Naruto nods his head in agreement. Sai unclenches, but Tenten is still tense. She knows why they are there. She just waits for them to deliver the blow. Knowing that Sakura is okay, Sai momentarily forgets Rin’s comment from six months ago: ninja don’t call without a reason.

Yamato clears his throat, and tilts his head towards Naruto. Naruto sits up, body alert, and turns to Sai. “Sai, since Sasuke and Sakura are both gone, you need to come back to the village.”

“I’m needed, aren’t I?” Sai looks right at Tenten, but she remains rigid. He sees the tendon in her neck, and she looks like she has something bitter in her mouth. It is not lost on Yamato and Rin that Sai looks at Tenten as he says this. Naruto eyes Tenten, but she shoots him a glare that forces him to look away.

“If that is your choice, I won’t stop you,” Tenten sips her coffee. She refuses to cry in front of other people. But she won’t act like this is all okay. She gets up from the table, and throws her mug into the sink. She hears it shatter as she storms up the stairs. It was the Hello Kitty mug Sai had saved after his first night here.

The use of the word “choice” was dirty and untrue. They both know he can’t say no. He follows her to their room, where she stands by the window, arms crossed and foot tapping. Sai enters warily, and he can see that any hopes of discussing this are futile. She doesn’t want to talk. No one ever does.

As Sai packs up his things, Tenten sits on the bed, watching him. Living without him was going to be miserable. But if that was the will of fate, so be it. Life had always presented itself as a series of events she had to endure. The death of her parents. Guy’s training. Her entire relationship with Neji, both in life and in death. She doesn’t think that she has the option of choosing to go back to Konoha. Her parents’ deaths meant that she never had a past, so she was in her rights to give up on a future. She would take it on the chin, like she always does.

“I don’t want you to go, Sai.” Tenten states this as he finishes packing up. He doesn’t reply immediately, but when he zips up his bag he looks at her. “I won’t leave Naruto alone.” He goes to the bathroom to get his toothbrush, and Tenten stares out the window. When he comes back into the room, he walks over to her.

She looks up at him, and while he knows she will never cry in front of anyone, his pride is wounded that her eyes are dry. He wants to just talk about it, but he knows that she is clamped up and incapable of discussing loss. She opens her arms and wraps them around his waist, and she puts her chin on his shoulder. When she steps back, she looks at him, without anger or sadness, but resolve. “I’m in love with you, Sai.” Tenten holds his hand. She says it because it is sums up the grief and hurt and sadness. She knows him well: not once does she ask him to leave Naruto.

She lets go and he walks to the bed to pick up his bag. She stares at his back as he pauses. He turns again, slowly. “You didn’t ask me to choose you over Naruto.” He looks at her, tilting his head.

“I know how Team Seven works,” she smiles, “Naruto will never be alone again.” Sai nods. His lips smile but his eyes are dead.

“Naruto said that ‘home is wherever someone is still thinking of you.’ I think Jiraiya told him that.” Sai throws the bag over his shoulders. “I will always think of you, Tenten.” She smiles and nods. She turns her back to him, and he looks at it before going back downstairs.

He kicks himself with each step he takes, but he doesn’t turn around. He nods to Yamato and Naruto, and thanks Rin for taking him in. She nods, and tell him that he can come back whenever he likes. Sai scratches Mei’s chin, and then he is the first out the door.

He is silent the whole way to the train station. Yamato has the life experience to know to leave him alone, and Naruto knows better than to force Sai to talk about his feelings. They are sitting on the train back home, when Sai turns from the window and to Yamato and Naruto.

“How do you know when you have found your happy ending?” Sai asks. Naruto squints, and Yamato crosses his arms. It is times like this when Sai misses Sakura the most. She knew how to talk about her feelings.

“I only ever know when it is too late.” Yamato leans back against his seat. Naruto looks at Sai with concern. “Sai, are you trying to tell us something?” Naruto’s face goes pink, and he adds, “you don’t have to come back if you don’t want to.” Sai looks blankly at Naruto. It is something, and because he learned from them, he says nothing. If Sasuke and Sakura are gone, it is up to Sai to watch over him. That is the way of Team Seven: to never allow Naruto to be alone, ever again. Sai shakes his head and looks back out the window.

Naruto, seeing that he doesn’t want to talk, turns to Yamato and asks him why he was flirting with Tenten’s aunt. She was too cool for him. Yamato sputters, and Sai spends the next few hours watching him try to evade Naruto’s prying questions. Sai wouldn’t say he is happy, but he knows he couldn’t make a different choice.

16

Without Sai, Tenten’s mind is like a sieve. She forgets customer’s orders and simple instructions. She is miserable around the café, and all her coworkers give her the easiest tasks with minimal human contact. She knows they do this because they can’t stand to look at her like this, and that she should try and scrape some dignity together, but it is all hopeless.

She thought she could take it on the chin but the blow landed deep in her gut. She goes through the motions of life, but she isn’t living. She looks at herself in the mirror as she brushes her teeth. She looks tired, and her bangs won’t sit the right way. She got twelve hours of sleep last night, but it is only 7 PM and she is exhausted.

She spits out her toothpaste and doesn’t bother rinsing her mouth before going to bed. She crawls under the covers and waits for sleep to take her. She doesn’t hear her aunt until Rin lies beside her. Tenten grunts, annoyed but grateful that Rin doesn’t turn on a light. Tenten can hear the cat purring by her ear. Rin puts a hand on her back, rubbing small, gentle circles.

“It has been five days, and it is already this bad.” Rin’s voice is quiet. It has felt like a thousand years. Tenten walks around, dazed, like there is a thick wall of glass between her and the world.

“He chose to leave.” Tenten rolls onto her back, and Rin withdraws her hand.

“Anbu operatives don’t have choices.” Rin looks at Tenten, “you’ve seen the mark, haven’t you?” Tenten has never seen one on anyone she knows. But she has seen them.

When Tenten opens her eyes, she sees Rin roll up the sleeve of her left arm, revealing a faded pink spiral. Tenten sits up, and leans towards the mark, illuminated by the moonlight. Rin swallows and rolls her sleeves back down. “I was a member of Root.” Looking back, it makes sense. She had been retired for twenty years, but even Sai couldn’t sneak anything past her. The one time they had trained together, before Sai had joined them, it had taken all of Tenten’s effort to keep up. If her aunt had truly retired she would have been easy to contact after her parents died.

“When my seal disappeared, I knew I would be able to come out of hiding. But I didn’t think my sister would want to hear from me. She…never understood why I wanted to leave.” Rin sucks in her breath, before setting her mouth into a firm line. “Your mother was a good ninja, and she was loyal to her village. But she couldn’t see what it was turning me into.” Rin paused, waiting for her niece to ask questions. But Tenten simply nodded, prompting Rin to continue. “Your father and I were on the same squad. I introduced him to your mother.”

“I don’t think I can tell their story, but I can tell you mine. When I was eighteen, I joined Anbu. I was moved into Root a year later. I was one of the older members to join, so I was more of a teacher than an actual product of the program. I was a mean person then. I didn’t think anything of inflicting pain onto children. It was for the future of Konoha. It was so bad that I think most graduates blocked out the worst of the pain. I am sure there are entire chunks of time that Kinoe and Sai have lost.”

“Kinoe? You mean Captain Yamato?”

“Is that what he goes by these days?” Rin asks, clearly uninterested in the answer. Operatives always have codenames. All that matters is that she recognized one of her former pupils.

“I was twenty-five when I chose to defect. After six years, it was apparent that Root was a dangerous vanity project. I was sealed, so I couldn’t tell anyone what happened. So when I went on a solo mission, I took a risk and fled. I came here, and well, here I stayed. Your mother must have known that I had defected, but she never told anyone.” Rin scratched Mei’s ears. “I used ink in my attacks, so becoming an artist was a natural choice.”

Tenten lay on her back, digesting everything her aunt had told her. Sai never told her anything of his childhood, or what Root had been like. She doesn’t know if she will ever get the chance to know, now.

“You have choices, Tenten. I made mine, and I want you to make yours. You don’t have to stay in Kyoto for me. You can always come back to visit. But I think your real home is in Konoha.”

17

Tenten walks the dusty path back from the train station. It is a beautiful day. She has been gone for eight months, and she feels like she is a completely different person. She feels unimaginably older. She passes through the gates easily. She is still recognizable, and after the relative anonymity of Kyoto, she isn’t used to being greeted by every other person on the street.

She walks up the street, towards Yamanaka Flowers. She keeps her head down, until something tells her to look up. Ahead of her, she sees Lee leave the flower shop, holding a bouquet of daisies. She stands completely straight, holding the straps of her backpack. She freezes, but when her eyes meet Lee’s, she propels herself forward so quickly that she knocks him over.

He manages to hold the bouquet up so that it doesn’t get squished. He and Tenten are nose to nose, and she can smell the curry on his breath. She sits up, trying to catch her breath. Lee sits up on his elbows.

"You came home.” Lee is uncharacteristically quiet, but his voice is bright. His lower lip is quivering, and he looks at Tenten with an adoration that she feels unworthy of receiving.

“I shouldn’t have left you in the first place.” She gets off him and helps him stand up. He grabs her in a hug, and if she hadn’t missed him so much she would have told him not to squeeze the life out of her, please. “I’m so happy you’re back,” he pulls back, holding onto his bouquet. “I was lonely without you.” Tenten smiles at him.

“I am sorry to have left you alone, and to not have called or written a letter, Lee. I am a horrible friend.” Her shoulders droop, but Lee won’t have it.

“I’m just happy that you’re back, Tenten.” Lee puts his arm in hers, and drags her back down the street she had walked up. “The kunai you left me saved my life several times. I got blood on the ribbons you tied to it, I have it at—“

“Keep it.”

“Really?” Lee gives her an absolutely dazzled look. Tenten smiles and nods.

“It is yours to keep.” They continue to walk down the street, and she doesn’t bother to ask where they are going. Lee tells her everything she had missed. He is still dating that civilian boy she told him to dump before the war. But he is working on changing, Lee swears, they have had a real break though in their relationship. Ino was still in Berlin and she still wasn’t talking to Shikamaru or Chouji, who had both gotten married. Lee doesn’t know how he feels about Temari or Karui, but he hopes that young love prevails. Hinata had fled to Florence. Sakura and Sasuke had broken up, and Shikamaru had sent Sasuke after Hinata while Sakura decided to go research cancer in the States. Ino apparently has a really cute boyfriend, and Lee suspects from Hinata’s letters that Sasuke isn’t just her protector, and isn’t that utterly romantic, especially after Hinata realized that Neji was in love with her after he died? He now sees why Naruto thought he had a chance with her; Hinata clearly has a thing for lost causes. Kiba had helped Shino discover girls, and who would have thought that Shino would be the Casanova of the Konoha 11? Naruto and Shikamaru worked closely with Kakashi in Hokage Tower, so they weren’t going on too many missions. Who was he forgetting? God, he can’t keep track of them all when they are in town, and it only gets worse when they aren’t all in the village.

“Sai—he is the one you are forgetting.” Tenten blushes, not looking at Lee. He grins at her, but he decides to play it cool.

“Oh, Sai,” Lee doesn’t wear nonchalance well. “I don’t know how I forgot him. He is the one who told me where you were.” Tenten looks away and mutters, “of course he did.” Lee grips her arm a little tighter and grins, thinking about where they are going.

“I think he misses you,” Lee continues, “it is hard to tell with him, but Naruto says he has been moody lately.” She can’t imagine Sai ever brooding. It wasn’t his style. Tenten stays quiet, and Lee doesn’t push her.

She finally starts paying attention to where they are walking, and she realizes that they are going in the direction of the ramen stall Naruto frequents. She has no idea how it still exists. It must have survived at least two wars and multiple attempts to destroy the whole village. She finds it comforting that at least one thing from her childhood has remained unchanged, despite everything they had been put through.

Tenten meditates on this point, but then she sees three figures walking towards them. One is blond, gesticulating wildly. The one in the middle moves like Rin: deliberately. On the right, she sees the tall figure she would recognize anywhere. She freezes in place, and looks to Lee for instruction. He just smiles and releases her arm. As she looks ahead, she knows that Sai has seen her.

She had thought about this moment. On the train she was going to knock on his apartment door. On the walk to the village she was going to run up and tackle him to the ground. Now that she stands before him, like a fool, she raises her right arm and waves, calling his name.

18

Sai had just wasted an entire day making Naruto and Yamato feel better for making him come home. He had planned on gracefully resigning himself to a life of misery, but Naruto wouldn’t have it. As soon as they came back from their mission, they were going to spend quality time together. Sai thought they were going to do something fun, but apparently Naruto decided they were going to go camping.

Sai couldn’t get any sleep. Naruto snores too loudly. This isn’t new, but after a week of non-stop Naruto, Sai can’t believe he has to endure another night of sleeplessness. He can’t settle down. Right before he is about to fall asleep, his thoughts or Naruto’s snores wrench him out. He knows they are just trying to make him feel better, but he wishes they would just let him have a night to himself.

After they packed up and trudged into town, Naruto announced that they would go get ramen, to properly celebrate Sai’s return. Naruto doesn’t care that a week has already passed. There is always a reason to get ramen. Sai wishes his problems could be solved so easily.

They are walking up the road, and Naruto is telling a story that Sai doesn’t pay attention to. He feels guilty for tuning out, but he truly does not care. Root taught him that there was a lot that he could live without: hot showers, independence and tenderness. He had sought refuge in the story of free will, and with every passing day he fears that he made the wrong choice. For if home is wherever someone is thinking of you, and those he loves are spread out everywhere, how can he choose one over the other?

He chose Naruto because he wouldn’t allow him to be alone again. But he resents Sasuke and Sakura for forcing his hand. Their choices left him with an impossible one. Sai tries to see it from their perspectives, but it is impossible now that he has been with Tenten. He is disgusted by his self-pity. This isn’t the person he was meant to become. He was meant to be unflappable. But here he is, sleep-deprived and cranky because of the foreseeable consequences of choices he made.

Sai thinks about this, looking ahead towards the horizon. He spots Lee, holding daisies, arm and arm with… _Tenten?_

She stands ahead of him, waving. He hears her call his name, and he freezes. He turns to Yamato and Naruto, who are looking at him.

“Looks like it isn’t too late, Sai.” Yamato’s hands are on his hips, and he nods his head towards Tenten. She hasn’t moved from her spot, but she is still waving. Sai pauses, thinking about what he is going to say, until Naruto gets impatient. “She won’t stand there forever, Sai!” Naruto goes around Yamato and shoves Sai forward. He stumbles but doesn’t look back, striding forward to her.

They are a few feet apart when he stops. “You came back.” He states the obvious, hands to his sides. Tenten looks at him. He hasn’t been sleeping, and he looks drawn. He looks like she did this morning. Heartbroken.

Tenten walks up to him, and she hugs him. “It’s in what I don’t say, isn’t it?” Tenten says, as Sai hugs her back. After a moment, Sai pulls away and puts a hand to her cheek. “I want to get a cat.” He wonders if she will get it. For a moment, he thinks she doesn’t. And then she smiles, and replies, “Yes.” Sai grins, because it worked, and it shouldn’t have, but it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually my favourite chapter of the bunch. As I said in the previous end notes, there are a few lines from Neruda's "Always" in here. As always, I am sure there are some typos. I will probably come in and fix them. Eventually. If there is anything glaring, please feel free to reach out!


	3. Regular People

_“I will rise up as strong and beautiful as a young horse”_

_Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart_

_“Tell me life is beautiful”_

_Lana Del Rey, “Without You_ ”

1.

Life is not a series of inevitabilities. Hinata had been born an heir but had lost her inheritance. She was marked for mediocrity, but she overcame her weakness and became strong. Her accomplishments were evidence enough that there was always a choice to be made, even when it appeared otherwise.

She cuts across the middle of the square. The buildings are all variations of yellow, with some pink and orange. The sun is bright. It is early morning, and Hinata was walking to the grocery store where she now works. Konoha is thousands of miles away. She left her father and sister with strict instructions to bring flowers to Neji’s grave weekly.

She had left shortly after telling Naruto that she didn’t think it would work out. They had gone on one date and when he went to kiss her, all she could see was Neji hanging over his shoulder, blood coming out of his mouth. She had recoiled, and Naruto looked at her with confusion. He looked hurt, but Hinata had grown up from the girl who thought pleasing others would make her happy. She was diplomatic, but firm. _I think we should be friends_. He took it gracefully, offering her a high five instead. After their palms collided, she smiled and let herself into her apartment.

It was Neji’s place, but she moved in to pack up his things and sort out what was to kept, sold and donated. Everything was gone except his mattress, left on the ground. She made it up that morning, and her suitcase was packed and against the wall. She had pushed the mattress to the middle of the living room, so it was under the moon. She had the windows open, and left the lights off while she took her clothes off. She brushed her teeth and threw a t-shirt over her head.

She had only three days left before she had to move out. She remembered viewing this apartment with Neji. He had been excited to move out of the compound, and he had told her that she could stay on the couch whenever she needed a place to stay. She had replied with a non-committal maybe. Neji had pouted and said that she really meant no, and she had shrugged in response. He had looked disappointed, but she turned away to focus on something other than the obvious.

Hinata lay in bed, eyes closed, trying to remember his face. It gets harder with each passing day. That is the reality of space and time. She knew he was in love with her, but she had only ever looked at Naruto. But when Naruto became a viable option, his appeal had vanished. That date had been the two most contemptible hours of her life. She had spent the time picking him apart, from his table manners to his new haircut.

She was never in love with Neji, but finds herself thinking that she would have liked to have given him a chance. Maybe, if she had, he wouldn’t have sacrificed himself the way he did. He would have found another way to save her and Naruto. One that didn’t involve being impaled before her eyes.

Two weeks after the funeral, and she still feels raw. Hinata was told to give it more time, but like any animal in severe pain, she feels like it will never be over. Tenten has left the village, which doesn’t surprise her. Hinata feels increasingly restless. She now completely understands why Ino chose to leave rather than stay. This place is hideous, at its core. Hinata lies in bed, wondering if this is what womanhood is all about. Dealing with perpetual disappointment in the men around you. The sheets still smell like him, and it makes Hinata want to scream herself hoarse and collapse all at once. She doesn’t do this because she doesn’t want to sully Neji’s bed; but it is tempting.

The next day, after a night of restless sleep and strange dreams, she went to visit Kurenai. Her former teacher was back at work, but she hadn’t lost the softness of her pregnancy. She covers herself up now, but Hinata can still tell that her stomach is no longer flat. Kurenai listens patiently to Hinata, who says that she wants to leave. Kurenai says she has a civilian friend who moved to Florence a few years ago. She studied art history and now taught at a local university, but she was going on sabbatical for a year and needed someone to look after her apartment. Kurenai would recommend Hinata for the job, and within a week, hopefully, she would be out of this place.

Kiba and Shino walked her to the train, after going with her to buy euros. Shino told her to take care of herself, and Kiba said he would keep her in the loop. The flights, in and of themselves, are long and forgettable. Kurenai’s friend meets her at the airport, and they take a cab home together. She doesn’t know how Kurenai met an American, but Steph is kind and considerate. Hinata wonders if this is why Kurenai has insisted that she pick up English and Italian as a genin. Maybe Kurenai had been planning Hinata’s escape for her. If this is the case, she is eternally in her sensei’s debt. 

Steph is going back to the States for a year to visit her family. Since she will be staying at home, Hinata won’t be expected to pay rent. Steph helps Hinata secure a job at the local grocery store, and like that, she is gone and Hinata is alone.

The only item she had brought from her old life was Neji’s forehead protector, which has belonged to his father. She carries it in the tote bag she uses as a purse. It makes her feel closer to her cousin. It gives her a sense of lineage; it helps her remember who she came from.

She has slept with a few men, but none of them can fathom the trauma she has endured. They are always so happy, and she feels like a ghoul in comparison. She always asks them not to call her again. She feels lonely, but as the sun pours over the buildings in the square and the cool air makes her hair stand on end, Hinata knows that she had been alone as soon as the light died in Neji’s eyes.

2.

Hinata has been working in the grocery store for a month. She mostly works cash, but every so often stocks shelves. She is quiet and reserved. She goes through her days living like a blank wall. An empty plane of a singular colour. Her colleagues find her alienating, but she works hard so no one complains.

Tonight, she is closing by herself. She has locked the door while she straightens the shelves, humming under her breath. Her shift had been alright. A few teenagers buying wine and beer had come in, but other than that, the store had been quiet. She sees a movement in the corner of her eyes and when she turns, she jumps. Sasuke stands before her, wearing all black, with his hands in his pockets.

He still stands straight, but he has lost the proud look in his eyes. He looks beaten. Hinata swallows, for she knows the story: his family was slaughtered by his older brother, and then his hatred drove him to a lonely and fruitless path of revenge. If she had to guess, Sakura had probably realized who he was only after she had declared her undying love. It must suck when the last person who believed in you loses their faith. His mouth must taste like ash. It is why Hinata is always so willing to forgive her father. She hates the taste of dirt in her mouth.

She eyes him warily, and he just looks at her. She turns her head and finishes straightening the last can of tomato paste before walking over to the cash register to clock out. When she records the time, she clears her throat, and Sasuke follows her outside the shop. She re-locks the door. It is 8 PM, so people are milling about, drinking wine and laughing. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, not having said anything. She looks back at Sasuke, and exhales.

“Hello, Sasuke.” Her voice is quiet, and he raises his eyebrows when she finally addresses him.

“Hinata,” his voice is a smooth stone, like the ones she would rub her thumb across before skipping them across the river. Kiba had taught her how to feel for the right rock. If Sasuke’s voice were a stone, it would be perfect. He would probably like to be at the bottom of a lake, anyway.

“Why have you come here?” Hinata begins walking, and he follows her. He shrugs, but he won’t look at her.

“Shikamaru wants me to keep an eye on you.” Sasuke had been through too much to lie. So he tells the truth.

“Shikamaru barely knows who I am,” she replies, “and I went on leave. I am not worth protecting.” Sasuke sighs. “He wanted me out of the village.” Sasuke still refuses to look at Hinata, who looks at him with a peculiar expression.

Shikamaru had witnessed all the chaos and pain Sasuke’s defection has caused. She always thought Shikamaru was an asshole, but she never thought he was cruel.

“Sakura threw a plate at my head.” Sasuke leads with the ending, because there is no way that he is the hero in this story. He hopes that this will make Hinata sympathetic towards him. But she merely blinks and turns her gaze from him. “It was the least I deserved, and when she kicked me out and Naruto was angry with me too, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Sasuke stops walking, and Hinata pauses after a few steps, realizing he isn’t following her. She slowly turns on her heel, and her skirt twirls around her legs.

“So Shikamaru sent you to protect me?”

“Do you want to know the full title of my mission?” Hinata blinks in response, and she has one of her humorless expressions on. Sasuke wonders if anyone ever told her that she has the same frown as Neji. “Shikamaru called it ‘Bring Hinata Back or, Sasuke’s pretense for seeking redemption’. It’s a little wordy for my taste, but what do I know?” shrugging, he sees the corner of her lip twitch upright. Sasuke stares her down, and he is impressed that she refuses to look away from him. Something passes between them, and it makes Sasuke’s guts tie into a knot.

“I’m not going back,” she crosses her arms and stands tall. A few boys, clearly misreading the situation, give them a wide berth and salute Sasuke. _Oh, if only they knew the half of it_. Sasuke’s shoulders are sore, and he honestly just wants to go to sleep.

“That’s probably why they sent me out here.” Sasuke snorts, walking up to her. “They don’t want to see me for a while.” He continues walking, and Hinata relaxes a little bit. She has resigned herself to loneliness, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hope for something more. She stands in place, staring at his back, and then something in her mind clicks and she jogs up to him.

“How do you know where I live?” Hinata’s voice is soft, a little ragged around the edge. Sasuke smirks, but he doesn’t stop walking. Hinata will never understand what Ino or Sakura ever saw in him. He is not just devoid of charm; he is actively repellant. “I scouted ahead, Hinata.” She hears the teasing in his voice, and it reminds her too much of Neji, so she doesn’t bite back her retort.

“So you spy on girls now? What a demotion.” Sasuke stops and looks at her, and she can tell that she has struck a nerve. Sasuke’s eyes narrow, but he turns around and keeps walking. Feeling a sudden wave of repentance, Hinata snatches his wrist, and she catches his eye roll as he turns to look at her.

“Grabbing boys on the street? Didn’t peg you for the type.” Sasuke drawls as Hinata pulls him up to her. She allows herself to smile, and suddenly, they are a boy and a girl who found each other far from home. The air between them is thick, even though it is a cool spring night. She clears her throat. “I shouldn’t have said that.” Her voice is quiet, and Sasuke stares at her mouth. She looks up at him, and he just nods, not averting his gaze.

This is what she gets for thinking him repellant. He is inarguably handsome, and in this quiet moment, something soft lingers in his eyes and she wants to ask him about everything. He has the kind of face that makes you want to know his story. She had seen pictures of his family before, in the papers. She always thought that when he wasn’t scowling, he had the kind face of his mother. Hinata wonders if he has been lonely too.

He had found her this morning. She had stuck her entire upper body out of her window. She was wearing an airy, white top. She didn’t see him, but he figured that she didn’t expect him to be here. It would be a fatal mistake. But she is a civilian now, and her arms are the colour of a dove in pale dawn light. She inhaled, and then turned back into the apartment. It had taken him twelve hours to work up the nerve to approach her. He was nervous because when he looked up at her, he recognized the trill of desire in his lower stomach, and he knew he was fucked.

So they stand there, and Sasuke knows that Hinata cannot be clueless. She steps closer and licks her lower lip, and Sasuke knows that they are both going to go to hell for what they are about to do. He puts his hand on her waist and she comes closer. He was pretty sure Shikamaru hadn’t sent him out to have sex with her, but now, it seems inevitable. He has never been touched by someone whose body just clicked with his, by random chance. They had all loved him, but he doesn’t want to be loved. He wants, just once, to experience what it is like for two people to choose each other at the same time. He is tired of being told what to do, and how he should live his life. He wants to be normal.

So he leans in and when they kiss, it is like a chance at new life.

3.

They didn’t make out on the street, but Hinata’s nails are digging into his palm as she leads him home, her face flushed. They haven’t really spoken about what they were about to do, or, what he thinks they are about to do. When they finally get to her place, she unlocks the main door and she drags him up the stairs to the apartment she is living in.

When she opens the door, she pulls Sasuke in and he follows. He walks up to her, and she embraces him. She kisses him again, but he pulls back and places a hand on her cheek. “Are we really going to do this?” his forehead is against hers, and Hinata, for what feels like the tenth time that night, can’t believe that she is doing this with him. “I want to, if you do too.” She bites her lower lip and he kisses its bow. Sasuke backs up to lock the door, and when he turns around, she is standing in the middle of the living room, waiting.

They make eye contact, and she unzips the back of her dress and pulls it over her head. He wonders how often she has done this, and he finds that he doesn’t like the idea that sex between them may not be meaningful. He wants, for the first time, to be special. Hinata stands there, silent. She doesn’t beg, or whine. She merely waits.

Sasuke walks back towards her. She keeps her chin up and eyes level with his. When he stands in front of her, he is once again surprised that he feels something. Sex had always been about living up to other people’s feelings about him, and while he likes to think that he has gotten good at it, it had been eating up the pieces of his soul that were previously spared.

She still stands back as he takes off his clothes, and as he stands before her again, she giggles before wrapping her arms around him. “What’s so funny?” he frowns, and she bites down on her lip to suppress her laughter. “You look so serious for a guy who is about to get laid.” She kisses him fully then, and she pulls him back into the guest bedroom. He has to put his arm out to prevent her from crashing into the doorframe, and since he is a little hurt by her jab about being too serious, he picks her up like she is nothing and sets her on the armchair in far corner of the room.

“Hmnuh?” is the noise she makes as he stands back. He kneels before her with a lopsided smile. She has never seen that expression on his face before; it is boyish, charming. A brief glimpse at the kind of man he could have been. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was selfish.” She shivers when he runs a hand up the back of her calf. Normally, she didn’t like the idea of oral sex. She was too self-conscious about the hair and smell to feel comfortable with a man putting his mouth there. It felt too intimate to her, and none of the men she had slept with were people she really wanted to be that close too. But Sasuke looks at her with his secret smile and god, it is such utter hell to go without touch, that she nods and slips off her underwear.

She opens her legs, and Sasuke looks to her for permission. She flushes, but says in a quiet voice, “I’ll tell you what I want, I promise.” Sasuke swallows, and leans in towards her. Sakura and Karin had always cared about the aesthetics of sex. It was easy for him to figure out what they wanted. But here was Hinata, sitting in a chair, open to him, in an unflattering position he had put her in, and he needed to re-think his strategy. She shifted her hips forward the edge of the seat and moved her shoulders so that the blades grazed the fabric of the back.

Sasuke thought he had left his bestial instincts when he has conquered the curse, but the sensory input was too much for him to process it rationally. Rather than looking good, he just wants to feel good. He leans forward and puts his mouth to her, and moves off of instinct. She smells nice; like a place he couldn’t quite remember but had missed terribly. She occasionally directed him to the left or right, and when he hits an especially smooth spot, her hips jerk and it activates something in him, He grabs her and keeps circling that spot, and call it his need to be perfect, but he doesn’t stop until she is panting and whining.

He pulls back, and doesn’t smirk at her, the way he would with Karin or Sakura. He smiles at her, and something in Hinata shifts and breaks. Without thinking, she kisses him. It is full of adoration, of life itself. When she pulls away, Sasuke looks at her with wonder. This is their first time and they don’t know each other well, at all. But he feels this strange hope; maybe this is what it meant to be the only two left alive. They both lost brothers who loved them above all else. Having that kind of love ripped away from you leaves a wound that will never heal.

He wants the chance to love someone with the intensity with which he both hated and loved his brother, although, he has never wanted to fuck Itachi, and he has never wanted anyone as badly as he wants Hinata now. He has also never wanted to be healed, but in this moment he desperately wishes he were a whole, well-adjusted person, just for her.

She places her hand on his cheek, and passes a thumb over his lower lip. Their pause is needed, because there was a moment where she was sure she saw the creation of a star, and she had never felt that before. None of the other men she has had sex with, all ten of them strangers too, had ever hit the core of her, or shown her the beginning of time. No one had touched her the way he had.

When he kisses her, she smiles into his mouth and pulls away. He tilts his head at her, watching as she kneels on the chair, so her calves are parallel to the ground and her back is to him. She had never tried this before, because she never had a partner who she felt comfortable turning her back to.

She looked over her shoulder, offering a small smile before turning away. One of the first things they were taught was to never turn your back on an opponent. But he wasn’t her enemy, he was something else. Sasuke knew that this was both a challenge and an exercise in trust. It is an utterly her thing to do: to set up both a barrier and a gate to true intimacy.

The plane of her back is beautiful and unmarred, despite their profession. He feels a surge of possessiveness; as long as he were around, her back would remain like this: bare and soft. He wants her back to be a secret between the two of them.

She sighs loudly, and he snorts. She turns to look at him with a raised eyebrow, and wiggles her hips to make a point. He drops his underwear and steps up behind her, and she hums when she feels him. He braces himself on the top of the armchair, and uses his dominant hand as a guide. He hisses when he is finally inside her. She is still wet and relaxed. He smiles, thinking it would be nice if he could get her to come again. It is the least he can do, since this is the first time he has felt like a human being since he was twelve and Naruto was the person he loved the most. A connection that had nothing to do with his name, but only who he is. Sasuke asks if she is comfortable. She breathes out a yes, can he please start moving?

It is reckless of her, but now that they are joined like this she doesn’t care if she gets pregnant. Their child would spring from the very beginning of the universe itself, like they are in one of those Roman myths she reads. The sharinngan and the byakugan are straight out of myth, anyways.

Ever obliging, he rocks gently until she asks for more. His left hand grabs her forearm. He moves so that his chest bumps her back. She rocks back and he mutters “don’t stop” into her neck. She whines in response and continues, fast and certain.

They both wonder if this is how normal people have sex. Two people, who don’t know each other but have an inkling that they should, choose to collide in the right way at the right time and suddenly create a universe between them. It is their choice but it feels like it has already been made for them; that is the feeling everyone chases, isn’t it?

He hits a particular angle and he can tell by the way she moves a hand down and growls that he needs to finish them both. It takes a few minutes, and soon they are both upon and over the peak. To mark their journey, Sasuke bites the top of her shoulder and Hinata curses. Hinata leans forward, and he follows her. Sasuke wraps an arm around her waist, kissing the knot at the top of her spine. He is proud that he made the reserved Hyuuga swear aloud. She moves a hand to intertwine her fingers with the one holding onto her.

She blinks her eyes open, and she can feel his forehead against the back of her neck. They are silent for a moment, until Hinata speaks. “Wow.” She feels Sasuke breath out a smile. “I didn’t think it could feel like that.” She admits this, gripping his hand. She is afraid that she has said too much, that she has alienated him. He breathes softly, before answering. “I didn’t either.” He pulls them up so they are now standing. He is really tired now, and bed is just a few feet away. “I’ve never shown anyone my back before.” She can feel his laugh against her, rather than hear it. “No one has ever presented one to me.” That is true. He had never known that it was possible for someone to completely see you with their back turned.

They release each other at the same time. Wordlessly, she pads out of the room while he gets into bed. She goes into the bathroom, and before she pees, she looks at herself in mirror. She lips are flushed and her hair is mussed, and the imprints of Sasuke’s teeth are red and purpling on her shoulder.

She traces a finger over it, and finding it still tender, presses down just to feel his teeth again.

4.

They are sitting on the steps of church, looking out onto the piazza. Children are playing, teenagers are smoking and old men are laughing. Hinata wears a pair of denim shorts, and her white top with billowy sleeves. She told Sasuke that it was one of the shirts Neji started wearing when he was 16. It swallows up her tiny frame, but she always liked hiding her figure. Sasuke wears black shorts and a dark, floral patterned t-shirt.

He leans back on the steps while Hinata leans forward. Her head is turned back so she can hold their conversation. She has just told him that she wants to know the real story about why he came out here. It has been two months, and she wants to know more about him, other, than, you know, his proclivities. She blushes, but her tone is firm

Sasuke raises an eyebrow. Can one proclivity be shared between two people? She doesn’t usually talk about sex. She mentions it only when he is either obtuse or fucking her senseless. He likes that he has this kind of effect on her. He doesn’t want anyone else to hear Hinata speak this way, in her impossibly prim voice. He wants to be the only one. She turns away and sips her beer, so he clears his throat and begins to tell her what happened.

So the story comes out like this: Sasuke was put in Anbu, because, well, Orochimaru made a weapon and it would a shame to waste such a gift. He and Sakura had tried to make it work, but he just couldn’t not be an asshole to her. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he still has contempt for her despite the fact that she is easily as powerful as he and Naruto. Sasuke isn’t proud of it, but he never bothered properly apologizing, and one day, Sakura snapped and threw a plate right at his head. He had dodged it in time, but he spent the night on Naruto’s couch and then Shikamaru sent him to Italy.

Hinata’s face is unreadable, and she looks thoughtful. “Well, are you sorry?” Hinata asks, leaning back so that she is on his level. Sasuke looks out across the piazza. All the people, laughing and talking. He sips his beer, thinking.

“I’m sorry, but not in the way Sakura wants me to be.” He sighs. “Our twisted bond doesn’t lend itself to a mutually rewarding relationship.” The truth is that he does love Sakura, more than Karin. He loved her with the same unwavering loyalty with which he loves Naruto. But she doesn’t want to be like Naruto. That was always the problem.

He looks back at Hinata, who looks at him with sympathy. She leans forward and pecks the corner of his mouth. It is a sweet gesture, and he smiles. “So, what’s your story?” Hinata snorts.

“I don’t have a story,” she replies, looking away from him. He scoffs.

“Everyone has one,” he crosses his arms but leans towards her. She shrugs.

“There isn’t much to tell. Neji was in love with me, but I was too busy looking at Naruto to think about it. Turns out Naruto isn’t who I wanted.” Hinata rarely says anything about Naruto. She leans an elbow on the step behind her. “All I could think of on our date was that he was the reason Neji died. And I couldn’t bring myself to kiss a guy with a catch phrase.” Her joke lightens the mood, but Sasuke knows it is a cover. Had he been in her place, he wouldn’t be able to love anyone connected to the death of his brother. It is why he hates himself most of all. There are just some things that you can’t get over.

“For a long time, I thought getting stronger was the answer to pain. But it hasn’t been the case, has it?” Sasuke asks Hinata. She nods, because she has suffered the same way.

“Maybe getting better isn’t about getting stronger; it is just about finding a way to live with what happened.” Hinata finishes her beer, and Sasuke watches her throat as she swallows. They are both silent for a bit.

Hinata’s voice cracks, as she says, softly: “Neji deserved so much better.” Sasuke looks at the piazza, and a child screams. “So did Itachi.” Sasuke drains the last of his beer, and in his mind’s eye, he sees Itachi’s ashes and forehead protector tucked in a box with his clothes, shoved in the back of Naruto’s storage closet.

5.

As a thank you, Steph had left Hinata the two year-long passes to the Uffizi she had bought before deciding to take her sabbatical. Hinata and Sasuke had gotten into the habit of going every few days, wandering around in the morning before her shift at the grocery store. Neither of them had ever visited an art gallery before. Konoha doesn’t have an art museum, and neither of them ever had much time to appreciate the arts. Hinata read a lot of books and had studied some languages, but they were just an extension of her training.

It takes them a few visits for them each to figure out which paintings they gravitate towards. Sasuke likes the Baroque while Hinata gravitates towards the early Renaissance. There is one painting they both linger at, rather than one patiently waiting for the other to be finished. Sometimes they stand side by side and their arms brush, other times they stand away from each other. Today, they are holding hands, like a real couple.

Hinata and Sasuke know they come off as gloomy. They are quiet and reserved, but nonetheless, they are a unit. Hinata supposes that no one back home would guess that, out of all the pictures in this museum, this would be their favourite. She asked Sasuke what he liked about it, and he replied that he liked the portrayal of a permanent beginning. Before anything is decided.

She looks to his handsome face, tense from concentration, and she, for a second, sees the Sasuke that attracted Ino and Sakura. He looks like he could read your entire soul, if he looked at you like that. Hinata doesn’t like to admit that she finds this version of him attractive, because she knows the real Sasuke, beneath the projections of school girls.

She smiles at him, wondering if he knows, out of the eleven men she has had sex with, that he was the first she had been with more than once. She squeezes his hand, and he looks down at her. His face relaxes, and he smiles.

“This painting begins with a happy ending.” Hinata says, and Sasuke furrows his browns.

“How so?” Sasuke returns his gaze to the painting, squinting. She thinks he might even activate the sharinngan in front of all these people, so she answers quickly.

“The couple on the left, Zephyrus, is the god of the west wind and the messenger of spring. In his arms is Chloris, who, by their marriage, will be transformed into the goddess, Flora, the woman wreathed in flowers.” Hinata continues, “so the story begins with the end of Chloris and birth of Flora.” Sasuke nods, and a sly look comes across his face.

“For a second, I thought you were going to make a sex pun.” He snickers, and Hinata blushes beet-red. It’s funny, because he has been inside her countless times but any mention of sex makes her embarrassed. She wasn’t a virgin when they met, so he finds it extra funny.

“I just wanted to point out that beginnings come from endings, Sasuke.” She mutters, and he gives her a tense look. The subject of happy endings is sore for both of them, for neither had witnessed an ending that could be called happy.

“About a month after the war, we were sitting in a bar and Sai asked Naruto, Sakura and I if this was our happy ending. I think Sai was going through something, and wanted reassurance. Sakura and I were at our breaking point and Naruto was taking your rejection hard.” Sasuke tightens his grip on Hinata’s hand, and she squeezes back; they both feel a little guilty for liking each other so much. “I said something cruel: I said this was our happy ending, even though we were all miserable.”

Hinata supposes she should care about his admittedly, shitty behaviour. But he seems different, from the wounded person he was when they first met again as adults. He tells her, in bits and pieces, the things he is guilty of, knowing they are crimes. He is honest about who he is and what he has done, but he has also shown that he wants to be different. He called Naruto the other day, and told him that he and Hinata were seeing each other. Naruto had taken the news in stride, and reassured Sasuke that he would always love him.

The transformative power of love. Another theme in _Primavera_.

Hinata squeezes his hand. “We wouldn’t be here if things had worked out that way.” She is right; for if they had worked things out in the world the way they meant to in their heads, they wouldn’t be standing in front of a five hundred and thirty-eight years old painting, on the cusp of their own beginning and ending. Their very own spring.

6.

They both have tendency to skip breakfast. Sasuke might have an apple or Hinata will eat some yogurt, but they are both usually fine with a cup of coffee. On this particular day, a Wednesday, they had woken up early and had decided to skip the coffee and see _Primavera_ early. They ended up spending hours at the gallery, and by the time they got back to the apartment, they were both starving.

Hinata walks over the kitchen while Sasuke locks the door. He follows her into the kitchen, where she is cutting up two apples. She has nice arms and a long neck. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she has said that she wanted to cut it off. When he asked her why she hadn’t already, she blushed and replied that she didn’t know if he would like it. He rolled his eyes and said that it was a dumb rumour. He doesn’t have a preference, and if he did, it didn’t matter.

His mouth twitches, and when she turns to offer him a slice, she knows what he is thinking. They look at a painting about fertility every other day, so she isn’t surprised to turn around and see the wolfish look on his face. She is surprised by the fact she puts the plate on the counter and fully turns to face him, grinning. They look at each other for a minute, before Sasuke charges forward and she receives him.

He’s hungry, but for something else. He breaks away and gets on his knees, looking at her with a smirk. She inhales and pulls her skirt up for him. He pulls her underwear down her legs and when she steps out, he flings them across the room, where they land on the couch. Hinata is momentarily distracted by their arc, but Sasuke gets her attention quickly when she feels his fingers curve along a lip. She looks down at him with a demure smile, and goes to lie on the floor.

The kitchen has black and white tile, and they left the window open. A butter yellow curtain flutters, and she feels the breeze as she spreads her legs, and she props herself up on her elbows. She bends a knee up when he leans forward, and she tilts her head back up at the ceiling when he plunges his tongue into her.

Before she had met Sasuke, she hadn’t been a very sexual person. In Konoha, she really believed that you had to get to know someone before sleeping with them. She didn’t even touch herself. Sex was, at most, a perk on top of a relationship. In Florence, she had slept around a bit, but that was because she was living in a foreign city and didn’t like spending all her nights alone. She didn’t do it for the sex so much as the company.

But it all changed with Sasuke. Their relationship was built on sex. She wouldn’t have it any other way, since they fit together in a way that she hadn’t imagined possible before. He has a hand on her stomach, pressing her down to the floor. She opens herself wider, willing to break herself apart if it would give him full access. She feels him smile against her when she whines, before he goes in and ends it for her. When they were in the academy, he wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told him quiet Hinata would be chanting _don’t stop_ like a prayer and she would be his favourite taste.

She isn’t a thrasher, but she has become more vocal in their time together, and her orgasm is one of the most satisfying things to listen to. As she catches her breath, she tells herself that she will not laugh when he makes a joke about eating her out on the kitchen floor. But she does kick herself when she asks if he is hungry, and he smirks and replies “not anymore.” She allows a smile, because she did walk into that one, as he sits up and takes off his shirt.

Today she decides he will look at her front. She sits up and rips her dress over her head, and then takes off her bra, and suddenly it is just her, sitting before him. Her ponytail skews to the left. Sasuke looks at her, and he knows that he will never get tired of seeing her like this; the peach-y sheen of her mouth and cheeks, the way her legs fall open on the floor, and her bright eyes.

He moves over her like a protector, like a human shield, and she presses herself against him. She is on the pill, and there is no one else, so she guides him in. She isn’t in the mood to make this an all-day sort of deal, so she asks him to hurry. He kisses the side of her head, and starts moving.

Her lower back begins to get sore, but she only wants him to move faster. Hinata puts a hand over his curse mark and runs it up his neck, looking into his eyes. He grunts, although he still wears a lopsided smile. She kisses his chin and lets him pin her to the floor, and as her pelvis slides against the tile she feels like she might break apart, but she urges him on more, wrapping both legs around his waist and pulling him to her.

She runs a hand along his muscled side, and with her pointer she traces an infinity symbol against him. She wants to feel this way forever. An eternity with her back against the floor is worth it if he is on top. Hinata wonders if she should feel guilty that their relationship, rather than being built on dates or getting to know each other slowly, is based on the fact that they just can’t seem to resist each other. But then she feels his heart in his chest and her own against the floor, and they have synced up so well that she knows, in the bottom of her soul, that while justice is impossible love, the real kind, is.

As adults, Hinata and Sasuke find it impossible to untie their knot, or to imagine a fate different from him, in one final stroke, knocking her cervix and burying himself in the place where her shoulder becomes her neck, as she locks herself around him and welcomes him home.

7.

It takes another three months for Hinata to admit to herself that they are doing something more than playing house. They have memorized each other’s favourite foods, preferred toiletries and schedules. Sasuke walks her to and from work, and then he will go and explore the city. He has gotten into drawing, which is Sai’s thing, and he is getting better. He said that, if he forgets, he could give this to Naruto as both a souvenir and evidence that Sasuke does, indeed, suck at something.

Hinata sits at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper while eating scrambled eggs. She likes to be aware of what is happening in the world, and she finds the West endlessly fascinating. Sasuke was in their bedroom, changing. The door creaks and she sees him walk out, shirt unbuttoned and carrying a book with an orange cover. She thinks she knows what it is, but she decides to wait and see what his play will be.

She goes to put more scrambled eggs in her mouth, and Sasuke pulls out a chair and sits beside her. She can tell by the smirk on his face that he wants to bait her. She chews on her eggs, watching him with her pearl eyes. Sasuke puts the book on the table, and she blushes as she swallows. “I found it in a bin at that used book store. A Japanese tourist must have left it behind.” He says with a smirk. It is a copy of _Icha Icha_ , and judging by the cover it was a historical romance. Hinata made a face. Her father would refer to this ‘literature’ as bird cage litter.

“Why did you buy it?” Hinata is pretty sure she doesn’t actually want to know, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her squirm.

“I figured I could bring it back for Kakashi.” He taps a finger on the cover, and then drops his voice an octave. “Want to read it with me today?” Hinata nearly chokes. She gives him a dirty look when she finally swallows.

“I don’t need to read it when we pretty much live it, Sasuke.” She doesn’t turn pink or stutter. Sasuke licks his lips. “So you are,” he flips the book over to see the blurb on the back, “the daughter of a noble, who falls hopelessly in love with a knight while engaged to another? Am I the knight? Is our affair a dangerous entanglement?” laughing, Sasuke looks up at her. Hinata keeps on her game face, since she has nothing better to do but beat him at his own game. She finishes her meal without a word, and puts her dishes in the sink. She heads to the bathroom, and closes the door.

Sasuke is nervous, thinking she might actually be mad at him. He can’t fathom why. He thought it was funny that he found this book here, that’s all. He has an apology formulated in his head, when Hinata walks out of the bathroom, stark naked. She wipes the toothpaste off the corner of her mouth with the heel of her hand.

“Why are you naked?” all thoughts of apologizing are immediately forgotten. She walks towards him as if this was the most casual thing in the world. “I don’t feel like reading, Sasuke.” She smiles, stopping a few feet away from him. She puts her hands behind her back, smiling. “We could get some ideas.” He replies, mouth dry.

“Are you bored already?” with that, Sasuke stands up, walking to her. It is impossible to reinvent the wheel; there are only so many ways to have sex. He throws Hinata over his shoulder and she squeals, kicking out her legs.

He sets her down on the countertop and kisses her. She pushes his shirt off his shoulders, and then he drops his pants. She pulls back from their kiss and looks into Sasuke’s eyes. He has been looking for the right moment to tell her he loves her, but it always seems to slip through his fingers. But this might be it. The moment he tells her everything.

She smiles. “You’re going to clean the counter after this, right?” Sasuke rolls his eyes and grunts an uh-huh. He kisses her again, and she puts her hand on his cheek. She rubs her thumb over his cheekbone, and he sighs into her mouth. She pushes him back, and she hops off the counter, landing on the balls of her feet. He tilts his head at her, but she winks and gets on her knees.

He grits his teeth, because while he likes how it feels he has mixed feelings about her being at his feet. She waits for his nod before taking him in her mouth, kissing his thigh first. He groans, because it feels good. But he just doesn’t like her to look so subservient. Maybe if they were lying down, it would be better. He tries to look away from her, at the eggshell wall in the background, but he just isn’t in the mood for it. “Hinata,” he says in the unsure voice that she knows means stop. She pulls back and apologizes, and his eyes get wide.

He pulls her up, reassuring her that she didn’t do anything wrong. He had consented, and she stopped when he asked, and that is what matters. She looks away, crossing her arms. “You shouldn’t feel guilty.” He puts a hand on her upper arm, and she sighs and looks into her eyes.

“It’s not that,” she goes red, and he sees her rub her thighs together. He smirks, because he knows what that means.

“I didn’t mean that we should stop completely.” He steps towards her, but she is too quick. She rests her elbows on the counter, and looks back at him over her shoulder. He smiles at her, his big lopsided grin, and before she can stop herself, she says this: “I never thought I would be this happy.” Sasuke’s grin falls into a smile, and he has this impossibly hopeful look in his eyes. Hinata bites her lower lip. “You’re happy?” Sasuke asks. Her eyes are impossibly kind but unsure, and he takes a step towards her, placing his left hand on her back. She nods. “Are you happy too?”

Hinata can now admit this comfortably: the idea of only being with Sasuke makes her happy. It has never just been about sex. It is something more, something incredibly profound that passes between them.

Something in Sasuke’s chest shifts around. Like a seal being undone, he finds a new chamber in his heart. Something old has been disposed of, and wave comes in to wash the ruins away. They have been like this for months, but she has never said she was happy, just like this, the two of them bare and simple. Something wedges itself in his throat, and he steps behind and against her and her eyes grow dark and she turns her head.

He moves in her and she hums. She can read him well enough to know that she had just given him something no one had before. Reassurance that he, just as he was and what he was capable of giving, makes her impossibly happy. She bends herself willingly, giving herself the same way he does for her. He takes his time today. He pulls her hips up and she is on her tip-toes, bracing for the impact that never comes.

He can’t reach her, so he goes slow enough that she doesn’t need two hands to support herself. She touches herself, and she doesn’t imagine anything because all she wanted was here. She moans, and she can hear him bite himself back. She moves with him in their familiar rhythm, and she wonders if he too, sees the sky in his mind when they are together. She makes a mewling noise that calls him forth and inward, and they enter the narrow frame of space and time where they both fly headlong into their end.

Hinata breathes hard, and Sasuke pulls back and out. She yelps and he winces when he withdraws. She always lets him come in her because she started taking the pill. It makes her feel close to him, which she supposes is a little perverse but everyone is a degenerate in their own way. She stands up and turns to look at him.

His face and chest are blotchy, and there is the sheen of sweat on his body. “I’m happy too.” He says this on the exhale of a pant, arms down by his sides. He bites his lip, and she sighs in relief. “I love you,” tumbles from her mouth, and he relaxes.

“I love you, too.”

It just feels so…normal. To choose to fall together with another person. What they feel for each other is profound, but at the same time it is the force that weaves people together. Neither Hinata or Sasuke can picture their fathers being this vulnerable, tender, with another person, but they can picture their mothers, soft and yielding and available, bringing their children into this world through the pure force of this feeling.

This is the intensity of love which heralds a baby being born. In a way, they both feel reborn. While their fathers wanted heirs and weapons, their mothers wanted them to love and be loved with the equivalent intensity with which they came into the world.

Sasuke speaks first. “I wanted to tell you for a long time, but it didn’t seem appropriate to say it in public or while inside you.” He wanted it to count. He wanted their love to be born in this quiet moment, protected from all else. Hinata smiles and nods. She pads up to him, and puts her hands around his waist. “We should go on a walk after dinner.”

No more needs to be said, for it is obvious now. All there is to do is walk forward.

8.

They go to a grocery store different from where she works. Her manager is nice enough, but neither Sasuke or Hinata particularly care for her colleagues. Sasuke follows Hinata with a basket. She walks ahead. She is wearing Neji’s old shirt again, and her hangs down her back. She is different from the nervous girl she used to be. She walks ahead of him, like a protector. She knows the language, so it makes sense for her to go up ahead.

Hinata stops and picks up a tomato. She likes to inspect her produce. Sasuke keeps close to her, looking around. She holds the tomato out for his approval. He opens his palm and takes it, running his thumb along the soft red sheen. He places it in the basket, signalling his approval.

They go about like this for an hour. Hinata picks up an item, and inspects it. Once it has passed her approval, she passes it on to him. He never gives it more than a glance and a quick feel, and not once has he put something back. He is more than happy to let someone make decisions for him. A cruel and accurate insight from his mentor.

When she pays for the groceries, Sasuke carries them back in the tote bags they always bring. Their walks are usually quiet. They both enjoy silence. He can tell something has been bothering her since this morning. She had spoken to Ino on the phone, a friendship he hadn’t expected to form. Hinata had frowned when she hung up the phone, but she hadn’t said anything.

She still has that frown on her face, but he knows better than to force her to talk. She lets out a little sigh before she speaks. “Ino still isn’t speaking to Shikamaru or Chouji.” Hinata had told him a little bit about the rift, although he suspected something when Shikamaru asked him to try to get to Berlin at some point on his trip. Shikamaru would do it himself if there wasn’t something preventing him from calling Ino.

“That’s how it goes, sometimes.” Sasuke hitches a bag over his shoulder, and Hinata looks up at him with pearl eyes. “Ino said that she worries, because she doesn’t have anyone to talk about the serious things with.”

“Aren’t you her friend?”

“But I’m not the person she would call if her entire life were destroyed.” Hinata pauses, trying to find a better way to explain this to him. “You have friends, but we all have one or two people who know us so well that, if we called them, they would immediately come to get you. Shikamaru and Chouji are her people.” Sasuke tilts his head to look at her.

“Is this about Neji?” Sasuke can read between the lines, and he is used to Hinata looking off into space, somewhere he can’t reach her. He does it too.

“Well, only a little bit,” she looks up at him sheepishly, “I guess I never realized that there is still a lot we don’t know about each other.”

“What does that mean?” Sasuke isn’t in the mood for this game.

“It means that I am worried that I don’t know you as well as I want to, Sasuke. We have never dealt with any crisis together,” Hinata’s voice is small. “Before he died, I could look at Neji and know how he felt. I don’t feel the same way about him as I do you, but I don’t think we talk about all the important things.”

“Sex is important,” Sasuke says dryly. Hinata blushes, but she stays firm.

“I want to know you better,” she looks up at him with a smile, and puts a hand on his shoulder. Sasuke’s lip twitches and he looks ahead. “There isn’t a whole lot worth knowing.”

She pulls her hand away, frowning. He has always been upfront, but he does it such a way where she never knows what it actually bothering him. Take Sakura. He has told her what happened, and acknowledged that he was a cruel asshole. But he never talks about the way it felt to be cruel, or how he feels knowing that he has the capacity to be that way. Hinata only cares about who he is now, but she wants to know how he actually feels about who he has been.

“I want to know why you never really tell me about how you feel about yourself.” Hinata pauses for a moment, looking for the right words. “I want to know why you don’t tell me how you really feel about what you did.” Hinata doesn’t look at him now. They are almost back at the apartment, and she needs to take her keys out of her purse. She moves ahead of him, and he slows down. She knows she has asked him something upsetting, and she still has that irrational fear that causing any upset will cause someone to lash out at her.

Sasuke would never hit her. But her father did. It is a part of her psyche that Neji always understood, but Sasuke doesn’t. It is things like this she wants him to know. She wants him to know all the dark parts that she doesn’t fully understand, and she wants to do the same for him.

She opens the door for him, and he steps through and up the stairs, silent. She watches him walk up, before sprinting to open the door for him. She pushes the whole door in and holds it for him. He walks through, and sets the groceries on the kitchen table. She starts stuttering an apology. He pauses, and turns to her, with a sad look in his eyes.

“Are you scared of me?” Sasuke hangs back, away from her. Hinata’s jaw freezes, and her mouth hangs open. “I know you only do that when you are nervous or scared. You speak like that when you talk to your dad on the phone.” Her jaw snaps shut, and he sears her with a look.

“No, Sasuke, that’s…” she puts her hands on her hips, frustrated that the words don’t work in her head. “I’m not afraid of you. I just get nervous when I know I have upset someone, that’s all.” She looks down at the carpet, and he holds himself. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and he quirks his mouth.

Sasuke doesn’t like thinking about himself, in an objective sense. He had been used to having the answers, to getting things right, that he lost total perspective on the things that mattered. He kicks his heel against the tile and exhales. “Your question didn’t make me mad. I just don’t like looking at myself.” He shrugs, and the room between them feels like enormous. “I don’t think about myself, or what I really did, because I don’t know if I could…justify still being alive, if I fully faced all the things I hate about myself, or all the cruel things I have done to the people around me.” Sasuke puts his hands in his pockets, and looks right into Hinata’s eyes. “The curse is a double-edged sword. Not only do you hate the thing that hurt you, you begin to hate yourself, and once you get there, it just…corrodes at whatever is human in you.” Sasuke doesn’t like talking about this, but she said she wanted to know the truth. The one thing, in all of this, that isn’t his fault is how ugly the real truth is.

“Once you hate yourself like that, it is impossible to go on living.” Hinata’s face is expressionless. “What I am trying to say, is that I don’t think I could keep living if I fully faced what I did.” Sasuke has never been suicidal, but it is because he knows where he ought not to look. Some things, his psyche simply would not survive. Fully looking at the way he devastated Sakura and Naruto would kill him. He would have no choice but to put himself to death.

Sasuke covers his face with his hands, his head hurting. He shuts his eyes. His mother is dead, so he doesn’t cry anymore, but he thinks about it when Hinata wraps her arms around him and presses herself close. She went behind him, so that her chest presses against his back, and her hands clasp over his stomach. The side of her face is pressed against her spine, and she holds him tight.

“Neji nearly killed me.” She holds him closer, pulling him tight against her. “Redemption doesn’t happen if you kill yourself to right a wrong you committed. You can only redeem yourself by living with what you did.” Hinata presses her mouth to his back, and they are silent.

“How did he live with it?”

“Because I told him this once too,” her voice cracks, “we once had this exact conversation, and I told him that he had to keep living with what he did, and choosing to be different.” Sasuke can feel her tears, so he covers her hands with his. “I didn’t think that he would make a choice like he did.” Hinata doesn’t sob, but she does cry. Sasuke knows that this is how Naruto and Sakura would react if he died, even now.

He knows because this is how he feels about Itachi. No matter what he did, he will always deserve to live, in the eyes of Sasuke. Death leaves a tear that can never be repaired. He feels her forehead against his spine, and he knows that Itachi and Neji left something that could never be repaired, but neither were broken.

“Is this what you wanted to know?” Sasuke asks, because he gave an answer that no one wants to hear. She holds him a little tighter as she replies.

“I want to know the bad things too.” Hinata pauses, “I don’t want you to carry anything alone. You are…the first person I would call if everything were destroyed. I want to know everything.”

“You are that for me, too.” Sasuke swallows, rubbing her hands. They stand for a moment longer, and then they break apart.

Hinata’s face is red and puffy, and when Sasuke turns, he pulls her in for a proper hug. Hinata wraps herself around him, and when she pulls away, she says that they will have pasta for dinner and he nods, picking up the bag with the tomatoes.

9.

Spring is full of storms. One day, they both wake up in a mood. His moods are obvious. He withdraws, trying to avoid a fight. He is better at controlling them. Sasuke has always brooded. It is a part of his charm. Hinata’s are trickier. Her moods linger under the surface, and she isn’t very efficient at integrating them. Years of emotional neglect warps even the kindest person.

It is raining outside, so they are both stuck indoors. Sasuke is trying to read a book, while Hinata fiddles in the kitchen. She has decided that baking might improve her mood, but none of the appliances are cooperating. Sasuke rubs his temples. He can feel the oncoming headache.

“I am going to read in the other room.” He stands, and turns to see Hinata. She shoots him an irritated look.

“You don’t have to. I have figured it out now.” Her face is covered in flour, and there is dough in her hair. She doesn’t look even close to figuring it out. She sees the doubt on his face, and frowns.

“I think we will both feel better if I just go into another room.” He stands up, but Hinata slams the tray down on the table. Sasuke jumps and glares, and suddenly, it’s on.

“Look, I care about this relationship, I think it would just be better if I went to another room.” Sasuke turns to face her. Hinata has a deadly look in her eyes, and Sasuke narrows his accordingly.

“Are you saying I don’t care?” Hinata rarely loses her temper. Everything about her is controlled, like Sasuke. But they were raised in dysfunctional homes by highly functional people. When they both enter this zone, it is hard for either of them to know which way is up and which is down.

“Well, I didn’t but now I am seriously questioning it.” Sasuke crosses his arms, and Hinata stays behind the table. “Do you care about me?”

Something flashes in her eyes and Sasuke feels a bitter taste in his mouth. _This_ is familiar to both of them, and like a horse that runs back into a barn on fire, neither will stop until some sort of outcome is reached.

“I’m not like Sakura or Naruto. I won’t compromise myself.” Hinata turns to the oven, which dings because it has finally preheated.

“Don’t bring them into this,” Sasuke is fiercely protective of both of them. They are precious, and they did nothing to be brought into this fight. “This has nothing to do with them.” Sasuke knows better. This fight is about nothing, really. He and Hinata have never fought before, and there are so many things left unsaid.

“This has everything to do with them!” Hinata opens the door and pops her cinnamon buns in, and Sasuke wonders if his mother ever spoke to his father this way. This dance feels too familiar, like it hums in his bones and connects him to his past. “I’m not going to make you feel better for breaking their hearts—I’m not here to redeem you.” Something in his chest ignites, and he remembers who he is in the worst way.

“I’m not here to be redeemed.” He pauses, and they look right at each other. “Are you not afraid that I will try and kill you too?” Hinata’s byakugan activates, and he thinks he may have crossed a line. His sharinngan isn’t activated, but he closes his eyes just in case. He doesn’t want to commit this to memory.

“I am the oldest daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi and you will not speak to me that way.” This is the first time she has affirmed her father, in any way. This is the first time Sasuke has seen her act like Hyuuga, too.

“I am the last Uchiha. I will say what I like.” They have never stood before each other in this way. As members of rival clans who had once been the same family. Sasuke may be the son of Fugaku and the brother of Itachi, but Hinata stands before him with all the defiance and pride of Hiashi and Neji.

Sasuke welcomes pain. It is a feeling he knows and can predict. “Life is not inevitable, Sasuke.” Both of Hinata’s hands are flat on the table, and her byakugan has receded.

“What does that mean?” his voice is sour, and Hinata prepares herself for the blow that will end this whole wretched endeavour, the thing neither of them wants to say but is climbing up her throat.

“It is your choice whether or not you put the chidori through my heart.”

Sasuke is struck dumb. He opens his mouth, but he has no reply. It had always been his choice, but he had never admitted it as such. He knew, in a way, that at one point he would have plunged his arm into Naruto and Sakura, without hesitation or remorse. But he has never been confronted with it, in such a violent way. He knows that she is a best at hand to hand combat, but he didn’t think it would manifest in their relationship.

She tilts her head, looking at him the way only she can: with an empathy that doesn’t forget what he has done. Hinata can see him, love him, with full clarity and understanding of him and his crimes. Hinata is his equal. In love, and in her capacity for brutality.

He has never thought about it before, but he realizes that she is right. The essential difference between her and Sakura, the thing that attracts him the most, is that she will know when to choose herself. In this moment, she had proven that, when push came to shove and he chose the unimaginable (which he will not do, _he will not do goddammit_ ) she will stand before him and see him for who he is. He is infinitely stronger, but should the curse return, she would do what Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi wouldn’t do. She would put him down.

Hinata wipes her hands on her apron, before taking it off. “I am going to take a shower,” she mutters, leaving him in the living room. She feels enormous guilt for what she had just done. She has ripped away the veneer of normalcy of their relationship. This is an exchange normal people would never have. She had just vowed to end him, should the curse come back. She knew in her heart, that she would; but she had hoped that if and when they discussed, it wouldn’t be because they both woke up in a mood and the oven didn’t work.

She stands under the hot water, not doing anything but willing the roaring in her ears away. She hears the door open, and Sasuke pads in. She hears the ruffle of his clothes, and he steps in behind her. “That wasn’t fair.” She doesn’t turn back to see his face.

“I know.”

“I have never, nor would I ever, put the chidori through you.” He knows he can’t say the same thing for anyone else he loves. She is a singularity, in that sense.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet, and she hugs herself. “I said those things because my mood ran away from me, that’s all. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I should have just let you leave the room.” She turns around, and Sasuke’s sullen face greets her. She whimpers, but he doesn’t reach out to her. “You don’t have to make me feel better about those things I said.” She says, turning off the water. The tap drips, and they still stand in the shower.

“It was going to come up.”

“It wasn’t inevitable, Sasuke.”

“Look, the curse could come back. I don’t think it will, but it could,” he sighs, running his hand through his hair. She turns to face him, angry, “don’t say that!” Her hands are fists, but he looks at her with indifference.

“You don’t know whether or not something is inevitable until it happens.” Sasuke crosses his arms, standing in place. Hinata glowers, but she nods her head. “If it comes back, you need to put me down. Can you promise me?”

He hates that they had to have this conversation this way. This is the kind of thing that proves that they are, by no means, a normal young couple. That they had to think about the fact that Sasuke was vulnerable like this, and that it really could happen, should his resolve turn, that she would have to kill him.

Their bodies are in sync, and always have been. She was weaker, but she could do it, and quickly too. “I promise, if you promise not to put me in that situation.” She looks at him, arms at her sides.

“I promise.” She puts her hand on his cheek as she opens the shower curtain. She steps out, and gets them a towel each.

“I’m sorry that my temper got away from me.” She sighs again. The cinnamon buns smell nice. They must have been in here for ages.

“So did mine.” He raises a leg to dry it. She moves their clothes into a corner with her foot. “The cinnamon buns smell nice.” He says this while looking at her a reassuring smile. _We are okay_. She smiles at him, and puts a hand to the crown of his head as the steam dissipates.

10.

Hinata is in love with him, but it never strikes her as necessary to ask him to be her boyfriend. She is ashamed of her impulse, like she is being too greedy. She asks Kurenai about this in a letter, and her teacher replied that she had never regretted committing to someone she loved. This wasn’t really helpful, because it did not address Hinata’s doubts: that she was allowed to be happy when everyone else was so miserable. She was in love and happy, but a part of her felt like it was wrong to feel that way with Neji in the ground.

She and Sasuke are sitting in a piazza, drinking beer and relaxing in the evening heat. Couples stroll by, children are playing. It is quite domestic. They haven’t discussed what will happen when they return to Konoha. Sasuke supposes that they should figure something out sooner rather than later, because she is the only girl he wants.

They are going up to Berlin to stay with Ino. They are taking the train, and in total their trip will take two weeks. Sasuke didn’t think Hinata or Ino were particularly close, but he had been gone for years. They aren’t kids anymore.

They lounge on their favourite stairs. Sasuke sips his beer, waiting for Hinata to speak. He can tell she has something to say by the way her mouth is scrunched up. “Do you find it hard to accept that we are happy?”

“There is nothing to accept. We just are.” Sasuke tilts his head back, looking straight up at the sky. Hinata bites her lip. “Sometimes, I wonder how the two of us are happy, when some people aren’t, that’s all.” She looks away, and the tendon in her neck clenches. Sasuke looks to her, head tilted.

“I know why I shouldn’t be happy. But what did you do?” Sasuke asks because he doesn’t understand the tremendous guilt she carries. He knows it is there, of course, but he wants to know where it comes from. Hinata wants him to know the dark things about her, but how can she tell him what she won’t acknowledge?

“I should have made things clearer for Neji.” This, again. Sasuke keeps his face neutral. More so than Naruto, her dead cousin is the one who haunts them. “Sometimes, I think things would be different if I told him how important he life was to me. He was the only one who ever saw me, you know?” Sasuke bops his head to the side. He could be an asshole, but that hadn’t brought him anything but pain. He and Neji were too alike for him to simply disavow him, and Hinata was showing him the dark spot.

“I didn’t know him, but you must have loved each other a lot if his death makes you feel guilty about living.” Hinata looks at him, with a sad smile.

“It kills me that he thought the only choice he could make was whether or not he died for a friend.” Hinata, for the first time, speaks about Neji without hiding her grief, or pain at his loss, without crying or hiding her face. “He had so much more to do, so many other choices to make in his life.”

“I feel selfish for wanting you as much as I do. Sometimes I think every time we are together, I am taking something away from him, from Sakura.” Hinata’s voice doesn’t waiver, and she reaches out for his arm. “I get afraid that our relationship is just sex and we are deluding ourselves into thinking it is anything more. I know that it isn’t like that, but it is something that scares me.” Sasuke reaches his arm out and she leans on it. One of the things she likes about him is that he admits to doubt: that it is real, that it isn’t just in her head.

“It’s more.” He rubs her shoulder, and she sighs. “I haven’t been with someone where we got to fall together. Karin and Sakura were both in love off the bat, and not only that, they fell in love with me at my worst. I don’t really know if they would love me if they weren’t trying to save me from myself.” Sasuke pauses. “You love me for who I am, and who I want to be, but you don’t think your love is going to do the work for me. I don’t think that takes anything from anyone else, if that makes sense.” Sasuke presses his mouth to the side of her head. She feels him smile before he pulls away. “The sex is pretty good, too.” Hinata laughs and leans into him further.

As a general rule, churches have stained glass windows for reasons beyond decorative. Stained glass changes the nature of light, the way that light changes when it moves through the eye. The experience of illumination, of seeing light differently, is reported to be more profound than standing in front of any painted altar.

They sit like this for a bit, silent. Sasuke rubs her arm, and she presses herself to him. “When my brother murdered our family, I forgot that life could be beautiful. Even when Naruto became my best friend, or when Kakashi taught me the chidori, or when Sakura cut me apple slices in the hospital. Everything was about getting stronger, getting revenge, and it ended up meaning nothing.”

“But you still think life can be beautiful?” Hinata asks, getting up on her elbows to look down at him.

Hinata turns his statement around in her head. She knows it is true when she remembers the way that Neji smiled, how they moved together and protected each other. That his memory wouldn’t die with her, for she would tell everyone about him. Life is beautiful because it will continue to flow, no matter what death or destruction try to do. Other people exist, and even when those who are beloved are long gone, there are always more in their place. Life itself cannot be annihilated, and that is how Sasuke makes her feel: like life itself.

For Sasuke, life is the shell of her mouth. It is the smell of smoke and beer and food in the piazza. It is the energy crackling between the chidori and the rasengan, and it is all that is seen by the byakugan and sharinngan. It is the fact that he doesn’t need to know what Kakashi’s face looks like, and that Naruto and Sakura, even Sai, never gave up on him. Life is each time and the last time Itachi poked his forehead. Life continues, and it prevails every time he is with her. “Yes, Hinata. Life is beautiful.”

Hinata returns his smile. “It is, isn’t it?” Sasuke pokes her forehead and she feints a pout, before leaning up and reaching into her bag. She turns around, holding up a different volume of _Icha Icha_ than the one Sasuke had found a few months ago. “Kurenai loves historical romances. She just hides it better than Kakashi.”

“Her tastes are probably more tasteful than that trash.” Sasuke replies, but Hinata grins and leans forward.

“I have seen her bookshelf, Sasuke.” He snorts, the idea of someone as pretty at Kurenai reading Jiraiya’s smutty books endlessly funny. “I did some research, and apparently both of these volumes are out of print. I think we should mail them back to Konoha and let Kurenai and Kakashi duke it out.” Hinata smiles wickedly, and Sasuke laughs.

“But don’t you want to be there to see it, Hinata?”

“I don’t think Kakashi will want us to see his ass get kicked.” Sasuke smiles and nods. Hinata put the book back in her bag, and then she looks back at him with a big smile, because they both know this: life, in all its miseries and indignities, and its joys, is ultimately worth living.

11.

It hasn’t been a year, but Ino looks unimaginably older. She is still the prettiest girl Sasuke has ever seen, but she is more reserved than she used to be. When they were kids, she was bright and loud. Now, at the tender age of twenty, she keeps her hair out of her face and her jaw is tight. She doesn’t seem to smile anymore. Must be the dead father.

It took ten minutes for Sasuke to realize that her boyfriend had no clue as to why she actually returned to Konoha. She lives with him, but it didn’t take a genius to see that she wasn’t happy. They worked on some grim archives, and she worked with victims of sexual violence during armed conflicts. Ino has lost weight, and she chews her nails ragged.

Her boyfriend, James, appears clueless to all the signs. He had worked in the American military until he was twenty-two, got his undergraduate degree and flew out here to do a PhD in Berlin. His mom was half-Japanese, so he had picked up the language from her side of the family. His blond, not platinum like Ino but gold. He has a square jaw, and when he smiles, you think to yourself “that’s a Real American.”

Sasuke can’t tell if James is clueless or simply was too caught up in his work to notice Ino. He was oddly chipper, like he was trying to prove how happy they are by performing his idea of happiness. Ino stands away from him, and when he holds her hand she grimaces. Hinata makes a face when James had complimented them on being so mature for barely being twenty. He clearly didn’t know the price they had all paid. Sasuke does the math in his head, and James is as old as their jounin sensei had been when they left the academy. When he looks at Hinata, he can tell she is thinking the same thing as James refuses to believe that Hinata is only nineteen. Their sensei were a lot of things: inhumanly strong, each lethal in their own right and they all had messy personal lives. But, for the life of him, Sasuke cannot picture Kakashi, Asuma or Kurenai looking at a person with only eighteen years under their belt, and seriously contemplating it.

At most, Kakashi would make a remark that would make Asuma cackle and Kurenai roll her eyes and reconsider her choices.

Ino started giving them strange looks as they walked through her door. Like she was trying to figure out how to put two and two together. Hinata and Sasuke had decided to ignore it, until Ino asked them how they found each other. They both knew that the honest answer, which was Shikamaru wanted Sasuke to eventually check up on Ino, would not be welcome considering she wasn’t speaking to him and James probably had no clue who he was. Hinata took the lead, and deciding that she didn’t owe Ino an explanation, she shrugged.

Her shrug wounds Sasuke. He knows why she did it, but he refuses to accept any gesture of indifference. He wonders if this aching feeling is what Sakura felt when he made jokes about their relationship. For the first time, he thinks he can actually, properly, empathize with Sakura. _I really put her through hell_. He can tell by the look on Ino’s face, a mix of concern and satisfaction, that this was Sakura’s retribution.

Sasuke goes to the other room to call Naruto (and Shikamaru) at Hokage Tower. They have started pulling all-nighters at work, so he is pretty sure he will actually reach them. Hinata, who has been briefed by Sasuke, asks Ino if they could go on a walk. Ino nods her head, and as the girls leave, Sasuke picks up the phone and heads to the balcony, to avoid James’ eavesdropping.

The phone rings once, twice, and suddenly he hears Naruto yelling into the phone, and Shikamaru groaning in the background, roused from sleep.

“Naruto.” Sasuke barely gets word in when Naruto starts talking.

“Sasuke, you better be prepared to pay up when you come back.” Naruto brags. Sasuke sighs, knowing what this is about. But he will play this game.

“Why would I do that, Naruto?” Sasuke smirks as his friend giggles.

“Because Sai and Tenten are officially together!”

“Does it count if they’re just fucking?” Sasuke looks out into the night. The stars aren’t as beautiful as they are in Konoha.

“Either way, you owe me dinner!” Sasuke can practically hear Naruto cross his arms, and by the rustling on the other end and Naruto’s yelling, Shikamaru had grabbed to phone.

“How is she?” Shikamaru gets to the point.

Sasuke can hear the edge of worry in Shikamaru’s voice, and he hesitates. He had wished to come out here and find Ino just as irritating as she had been in the academy, but it is clear that something in her has changed. He thinks about lying, but Shikamaru is someone who thrives on information, and he would probably be able to tell.

“She is different.”

“How so?” The edge of worry slices through the calm of Shikamaru’s voice, and Sasuke sucks in a breath. This was not going to be pretty.

“She wears her hair out of her face, and she doesn’t smile much. She doesn’t emote much at all, actually.” Sasuke rubs his face. “She chews her nails, and she has lost weight. She hasn’t told her boyfriend about the war, or anyone except Hinata and I.” Sasuke doesn’t know anyone on Team Ten well, but he knows that they are close. Close enough that Shikamaru would put one of the strongest ninja in Konoha, the one equivalent to Naruto and a war criminal, out in Europe for a year just to see Ino for a few days. Sasuke doesn’t know when he started caring about other people, but he accepts this as his fate.

“Is she eating?” Shikamaru asks. Sasuke thinks about retorting that he just said that she had lost weight, but then he remembers the emotional wallop of Hinata’s shrug. So he switches the hand that holds the phone, and replies in a soft voice: “I haven’t seen her eat anything, and we have been here for hours.” Shikamaru sighs, and Sasuke can hear him rub his face on the phone. “What is her boyfriend like?”

“For someone who is ex-military, clueless.”

“You join when you are eighteen, in America. He hasn’t been doing this as long as we have, and he isn’t trained like we are.” Shikamaru sounds annoyed. Sasuke would be too, if he had to defend someone as clueless as James.

“Look, something is clearly up with Ino. I don’t know what it is, but something is wrong.” Sasuke keeps his voice low, as he sees Ino and Hinata walking back down the street. “She isn’t herself, Shikamaru. She really needs you to come get her.” Sasuke doesn’t mince his words, because when he looks at the dull expression on Ino’s face, he sees his own from a few years ago. “Look, I’ve got to go, but Ino needs someone who knows her to come and get her. Don’t call me back.” Sasuke hangs up the phone and walks into the apartment just as Hinata and Ino get back.

Ino seems a little lighter, and her smile almost reaches her eyes as she tells Hinata about some of her exploits. Hinata laughs, and when they turn back to see Sasuke, they look at him expectantly. Hinata holds a jade plant in her arms.

“How is Naruto?” Ino asks, the smile still on her face.

“Oh, he’s great.” Sasuke puts the phone back on its stand. “Apparently I owe him dinner.”

“I would say you owe him a whole lot more.” Ino crosses her arms. Sasuke smirks.

“We had a bet,” he replies, “and I lost.”

“What did you bet on?” Hinata was confused. This was the first time Sasuke had mentioned any bet.

“Sai and Tenten are official.” Sasuke shrugs, and Hinata looks at Ino with worry. Ino snorts and pads into her kitchen. “I’m glad that it worked out for them. She is the kindest one, out of all the girls, at least.” Ino winks at Hinata, and the other girl blushes. Sasuke raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t bother asking. Sakura nearly deserted, Ino cut off Shikamaru and Chouji, and Hinata is now in love with her friend’s shitty ex-boyfriend. Tenten wasn’t even a little morally ambiguous. She always did the right thing.

Ino goes and prepares the fold out couch for them, humming. By the time she is done, it is midnight. James went to bed hours ago, and Sasuke can’t help but feel like Ino is trying to hide something. He lies does next to Hinata, and when the lights are out she immediately turns onto her side.

“I’m worried about Ino.” Sasuke can’t see her face, but he knows it is probably scrunched up. “There were no plants here.” Sasuke hadn’t noticed, but he supposes it must be a key detail if it made Hinata this upset.

“I’m worried too.” Sasuke pauses. Hinata doesn’t know that he was serious about the mission Shikamaru gave him. “I told Shikamaru to come and get her.” Hinata sighs.

“He isn’t like Naruto, and she isn’t like you, Sasuke.”

“I know.” Sasuke’s voice is small. He hates how disconnected he is from their class, from their friends who aren’t really his friends (but would have been, if he had stayed behind).

“He won’t come unless she asks him to.” He feels Hinata roll onto her back, and her arm grazes against his.

They fall into an uneasy sleep, and when they wake up to James slamming the apartment door at 4 AM, Hinata rolls towards Sasuke, and realizes that they have both activated their doujutsu. Hinata gets up and walks to Ino’s room, and when she doesn’t come out, Sasuke goes to sleep.

**

Ino won’t tell Hinata what happened. Hinata walked into her room, and Ino was on the bed, back to the door. “Ino,” Hinata says softly, “are you okay?” Ino huffs, and rolls on her back to look at Hinata. Her eyes are red, and she looks miserable. “I don’t think so.”

Hinata nods, and lies down on the bed. Ino asks her to stay, and Hinata nods. In the dark, Hinata is bolder than she is in real life.

“Does he know about your dad?” Hinata asks. Ino shakes her head. “Are you going to tell him?” Ino turns to Hinata, her lower lip quivering. She shakes her head again. Hinata opens her arms, and Ino collapses on her chest. Hinata rubs Ino’s back, while she cries silently.

They had never been friends in the academy, but since they both fled to Europe, they had formed a bond by writing letters and speaking on the phone. Ino has been a wreck without her father. Nonetheless, Hinata knows that she isn’t the person that Ino needs right now.

“Ino, I think you should call Shikamaru tomorrow. I think he misses you.” Ino just cries harder. Because she thought she had a life here, but it isn’t a life she wants to live. Ino is heartbroken.

So, this is life after Ino-Shika-Cho.

**

It is their third and final day, and James still hasn’t come home. Hinata and Sasuke don’t bother asking what happened. Sasuke chalks if up to the age difference, but Hinata thinks that there is something more. She suspects that Ino is protecting him, though from what, she doesn’t know. Hinata goes out to buy a postcard and send to her sister, so Ino and Sasuke are all alone in the apartment. Ino rubs the leaves of her jade plant, while Sasuke lies on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

“How is Shikamaru?” Ino asks. She doesn’t look at Sasuke. She doesn’t need to see his face.

“He’s married.” Sasuke shrugs against the floor. “He does a lot of advising now.”

“He gives good advice.” Ino says quietly. She stops looking at the jade, and decides to see what is happening outside.

“Chouji goes on missions. He’s married, too.” Sasuke turns to see her. A smile, a real one, flashes across her face. She still cares.

“They both deserve it,” she says, “happiness. If it is possible in this world, it is what they deserve.” Sasuke hums, and drums his fingers against his chest. Ino turns to look at him. She is loyal to Sakura, but she is glad that Sasuke ended up with someone else.

He is more selfless than he ever was while in Konoha. Not just with Hinata. He treats Ino with care, making her tea and trying to get her to eat. He isn’t very subtle, or good at it, but it is clear that he cares about those around him, whereas before, well, it seemed unlikely. Ino rests her head on her hands, looking at him.

“Are you happy, Sasuke?” Ino licks the back of her teeth. He doesn’t shrug; rather, he freezes. He looks at Ino with suspicion, and she puts her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Hey, I was just asking.” Sasuke’s face shifts into uncertainty, and Ino thinks that this is the Sasuke she remembers: surly and quick to react.

“Why do you ask?”

“You are dating my friend.” Ino takes a sip of water, uninterested in this Sasuke. She was interested in the man who fell in love with Hinata.

“I’m happy,” he pauses, “I think we’re happy.”

“It bothers you that she shrugged her shoulders.” Ino inspects her nails, and Sasuke’s eyes narrow. His sharinngan flashes, but they aren’t twelve and she is no longer convinced that she is in love with him. She spends all of her days reading about how horrible people are and her father is dead. She doesn’t blink. “I think Hinata is happy.” Sasuke’s face softens, and Ino continues. “She just didn’t want to get into it.”

“I shouldn’t be mad about that,” Sasuke stands up, to walk over to the kitchen. “I guess I had never considered how Sakura felt, and she gave me a taste.” Ino frowns. Sasuke fills a glass with water.

“You never loved her, not the way she wanted. It is not the same.” Sasuke is surprised by Ino’s candor, and that she is so calm while they talk about how he broke Sakura’s heart. “Hinata is different. I can tell.” Sasuke sits on the couch, nodding. He has a question he has wanted to ask, and Ino is calm enough for him to ask.

“Why did James leave?” Sasuke is curious, since her boyfriend hasn’t been here since he left a few days ago. Ino frowns and looks away.

“He has been busy with his research. It makes him miserable, and I think he doesn’t appreciate how bad it is,” Ino crosses her arms. The grey look returns to her face. He can tell that she doesn’t want him to know much more. Out of respect he drops the question. He and Hinata are leaving tomorrow morning, and he doesn’t want to remind Ino of her pain. He sips his water and hopes Shikamaru books a plane ticket soon.

13.

Three months later, and Hinata and Sasuke are on the train to Rome. They are going home today. Hinata holds his hand while looking out the window. Everything has changed in the span of a year. She turns to Sasuke, who holds up a book with his left hand.

They still haven’t spoken about Konoha. She still lives with her father, and Sasuke lives across the village in the old compound. They will go back to work, and she worries that she won’t see him as often. She likes the little life they carved out with each other, and she wants it to continue.

Sasuke presumes that it will, which is why he hasn’t brought it up. She had apologized for shrugging in Berlin, and his response was that he wants to be her official boyfriend. Not the guy she sleeps with, or the guy who keeps her from getting lonely. Her boyfriend.

Hinata had smiled and said yes, it hadn’t struck her as important but _yes_. Uchiha Sasuke, the love of her life and her _boyfriend_. But they hadn’t discussed the logistics, and the closer they get to the airport the more nervous she gets. She turns to Sasuke, and squeezes his hand. He sets his book down on his lap and meets her gaze.

“Mhhm?” Sasuke rests his head against the headrest. Hinata looks uncertain, so he raises his eyebrows to prompt her.

“We are going to still be together when we go back, right?” Hinata asks, and he nods his head. He is trying to figure out why she is asking him this, but she keeps going. “Sasuke, I want to keep living with you.” She smiles, “We are going to start working, and we won’t see each other as much if we don’t live together.” Sasuke smirks in response, and she prepares herself for the joke.

“I really don’t want to have to deal with your dad.” Hinata smiles and looks away, which is the expression she makes when she ultimately agrees but she thinks he said it in the most inelegant way. “My dad is the one picking us up from the airport.”

“Why?” Sasuke groans, and Hinata laughs.

“I think he wants to meet you.” She smiles at him, looking at his mouth. “He needs to make sure you are good breeding stock, up to par with the Hyuuga name.” Hinata kisses Sasuke, who laughs into her mouth. He has found himself becoming increasingly amenable to the idea of children.

“He thinks ahead, doesn’t he?” Hinata chirps.

“We are both Capricorns, you know?” turning back towards the window, the countryside rolls by and when she sees life unfurl before her, she looks forward to it.

14.

It takes a week to find an apartment. They decide to rent a two bedroom, just for the extra space, and they find one with nice big windows and a balcony. They had stayed at the Hyuuga compound for that first week. Her father says nothing, directly, about Sasuke. They simply sit in silence as Hanabi and Hinata talk over dinner. Even then, Hanabi does most of the talking.

It has been awhile since Sasuke had to meet someone’s parents. Sakura’s parents didn’t like him off the bat. He can’t blame him, and he expects more or less the same. However, Hiashi seems indifferent to him. He doesn’t throw his past in his face, or question Sasuke’s motives. Their last night there, while Hinata and Hanabi pack, Sasuke and Hiashi sit in the garden. Hiashi looks up at the night sky, and clears his throat.

“You are like your mother, Sasuke.” Hiashi levels his gaze at Sasuke. “She was very kind.” Sasuke nods. It was the nicest compliment he had received from any adult. Hiashi says nothing more, and after a few minutes, he goes back into the house.

The next day, Hiashi drops some plates off as Naruto, Sai and Sasuke haul a couch up three flights of stairs. Sai is cold, which Sasuke more or less expected, but Naruto is as enthusiastic as ever to see him. Shikamaru even waltzes by, if only to watch chaos unfold. Tenten greets Hiashi, before offering to seal the couch, but Naruto insisted that they could easily get it up the stairs in the time it would take to seal it. Of course, as he says this, the couch gets stuck, wedged at an awkward angle. Sai barely escapes being crushed, and Sasuke is pushed against a wall. Sai was to turn and use his back to keep the couch from sliding down and crashing into, not just Tenten and Hinata, but fucking Hiashi as well. Sasuke can barely get purchase, when Naruto drops his end, and demands Shikamaru help them.

Sai and Sasuke make the same pained expression. When Tenten and Hinata step forward to help, the two men are so embarrassed that they insist that they have things under control. Tenten sighs, with her hands on her hips, while Hinata looks deeply worried. Shikamaru wears a shit eating grin, tucking a cigarette behind his ear.

Naruto, marooned at the end, jumps up and down, demanding assistance. He is oblivious to Sai and Sasuke’s requests for help. Hiashi purses his lips and leaves. Shikamaru replies that he prefers to “watch the show”. Admittedly, he would act differently if, say, anyone else but Sasuke or Sai were involved. Eventually, Kiba and Shino pop by, and after some wrangling, they bulldoze Naruto over with the couch and get it up the stairs and into the apartment.

After that, everything is easy. Naruto eventually hauls the box with Itachi’s ashes into the apartment, and that’s it. It takes five hours, but everything is, more or less, where it needs to be. Hinata puts a postcard of _Primavera_ up on their fridge. She stands back, and looks at the boxes all around the living room.

Sasuke sits on the couch, holding a picture frame in his hand. Hinata pads over to the couch, and sits next to him. Sasuke, preferring silence, simply hands the frame over to her. It is a picture of his family, the one all the newspapers used after the massacre. His father’s expression is stoic, and his arms are crossed. His mother smiles, with her hands on Sasuke’s shoulders. Itachi, who looks like their father, doesn’t smile. Sasuke, however, has the same expression as his mother. Hinata has never seen him look this relaxed and happy around other people. She holds the picture up to her face, and Sasuke watches her.

“You look like your mother,” Hinata remarks. She looks at Sasuke, who frowns.

“Your dad said I am like her, too.” Sasuke holds his hand out for the frame, and Hinata gives it back. He doesn’t like talking about his mother. Hinata understands that it will always be too soon. He puts it back in the box with other family trinkets: forehead protectors, photos. Hinata had put Neji’s forehead protector in there as well. Itachi’s urn is in the corner of the box. She said they could place it by the window, but Sasuke seemed unsure. He picks the box up and walks into the spare room, placing it on to the top shelf of the closet.

Hinata follows him, and she watches his arms fall to his sides. He looks at her, tired. She holds her hand out, and when he takes it, she leads him back to their bedroom.

**

Hinata eats a peach, and the juice runs down her chin. Sasuke likes her too much to think it is anything but charming, even though it is gross. This is the nature of real love: liking someone so much that you get excited to kiss their sticky chin. Hinata rubs the worst of it away with the back of her wrist, and she opens the freezer where she keeps their compost. They don’t have air conditioning, and their apartment gets so hot in the summer that it would stink otherwise.

The only thing worse than this heat is the fact that Sasuke now spends most of his days with Sai. He is pretty sure Shikamaru did it out of spite, but apparently they work so well together that Kakashi wants them to work together on a permanent basis. Sasuke had been complaining about this affront, until Hinata started eating the peach. He gets distracted when he watches her eat, sometimes.

She wears just a t-shirt, and she pads over to Sasuke, who is sitting on the couch. She sits on the couch beside him, and he turns so that she is between his legs. He doesn’t kiss her mouth. No, love has made him more base. He kisses the underside of her mouth, and she mewls. He laughs, “what kind of noise is that?” Hinata puffs her cheeks, and he kisses her again. She climbs on his lap, and Sasuke welcomes her.

They have lived together their entire relationship, but now that they are in their own apartment, working in the forces, things have gotten more serious. The adjustment to real life has been challenging. Anbu takes up most of his time, and Hinata has been going on tracking missions with her old squad. It feels like the less time they have to spend with each other, the more serious their relationship gets.

Hinata kisses him, both her hands on his face. She doesn’t like that they now spend some nights apart. Hinata is not afraid of being alone. What she doesn’t like is both not knowing where he is while also having the knowledge that he is probably endangering his life somewhere. She overcompensates when he is at home. “Do you really want to do this right now?” Hinata pulls back, uncertain. She shouldn’t monopolize his time like this. Sasuke blinks at her, confused.

“What?”

“We don’t have to make out like this, I mean, maybe you want to see our friends or do something outside.” As Hinata speaks, Sasuke kisses the column of her throat. She sighs, listing off different ways they could spend the day, but he finally kisses her mouth before she suggests hanging out with Naruto. She squeaks, and he pulls back. “Please, don’t talk about anyone else while we make out,” he nips her bottom lip and she laughs.

Before last night, she hadn’t seen him in three days. Seventy-two hours is nothing but it feels like a life time when he isn’t by her side. She knows it’s dumb, but it is how she feels. So when he tells her that he just wants to spend the day with her, she is selfish enough to take him up on it.

She kisses along his jaw and he makes a happy noise in his throat, the kind that he only does when they are alone and relaxed like this. It is a noise for her ears alone. One of her knees is in his armpit, and she doesn’t mind the stink of sweat and deodorant. Sasuke thinks about taking her shirt off, but she beats him to it, before she starts kissing him properly. He feels stuffy, and he breaks apart from her to peel off his shirt. She hums, impatient and eyes lidded. “Am I inconveniencing you?” he throws his shirt across the room.

“I’m going to ignore that,” she whispers into his mouth, and he chooses not to respond. He didn’t endure three days with Sai and Shikamaru to come back here and piss off Hinata.

Her mouth still tastes like a peach, and he gets a buzz from the thought alone. He puts his hands on her hips, pulling her closer. It amazes him that he still feels this desperate pull for her, that it hasn’t really stopped even though they have lived together for a year and a half. Seeing her every day only made his desire grow, instead of dissipate.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, what does it mean to spend every day with someone? Sasuke feels no contempt or resentment in his heart. He just feels stupid happy. Like, he knows the world is full of evil, but all the bad things fall away when they are entangled and her hands are on his face.

Eventually her hands move south, and in a new development, she touches herself instead of him. It makes his stomach drop and his eyes swirl red, but he just keeps kissing her. When she buries her head in his shoulder, he runs a hand up her side. When she reaches for him, he lifts her up and on, securing her.

Then, he pauses. He pulls back from her mouth and frowns. Hinata can see the question form in his mouth, and she pre-emptively answers. “I don’t care,” she says, and he nods, burying himself in her.

Hinata thinks this should have gotten old, but it hasn’t. He looks at her with his smile, the lopsided one that would have been his only one, had his family not been murdered. Her heart bursts with a tenderness beyond words, and when she kisses him she does so with the full force of her feelings.

He wants to be with her everywhere, all the time, but the world doesn’t work that way. But in moments like this one, he feels like they were and always will be one, that they are the world and there is no end. He bites her shoulder, something he hasn’t done since their first night last spring, and her gasp is what heralds the beginning within the end.

**

This increased sense of responsibility hasn’t translated into their sex life. Neither of them had really worried about condoms, because Hinata was on the pill and had been tested right before he arrived in Florence and he had come out of two long-term, monogamous relationships. Since they’ve been together, there has been no one else.

Hinata decided to go off the pill a month after they returned. She hadn’t found anything else that was markedly different that she liked, so they started using condoms. This wouldn’t be a problem, if they bothered to be vigilant.

The first time they have unprotected sex, it a complete accident. The second time, they were both too caught up in the moment. The third time, as described above, Hinata decided that she didn’t care and Sasuke followed her lead. A few of their former classmates are expecting, and shinobi live their lives at warp-speed, anyways.

Two months later, Hinata sits in their bathroom, holding a little stick with two lines. She exhales, trying to wrap her head around the idea of being a mom. She puts her hand on her stomach, and wonders if her baby would hear her if she were to speak. “Hello baby,” she says, rubbing her lower stomach. “Can you hear me in there?”

“Hinata?” Sasuke knocks on the door. “Are you okay?” she jumps, and runs up to the door to keep him from opening it. She knows throwing herself against the door will only make him suspicious, but she couldn’t think of anything better to do. She steps back, and Sasuke takes the opportunity to poke his head in. “Who were you talking to?”

He isn’t usually this nosey, but she isn’t usually this secretive. Her face is bright red, and before she can move, he spies the box on the counter. “Is that…” Sasuke frowns, and Hinata, not thinking, pushes the box into the garbage. Sasuke lets himself in to the washroom, and after squeezing past Hinata, picks the box out of the trash. It is pink and white, with the silhouette of a baby on the front. Sasuke holds the box up and looks at her.

“Are you?” he doesn’t finish the question, as she passes him the test. He takes it from her hand, and he looks between the test and the box, frowning. Hinata catches herself placing a protective hand over her stomach, which Sasuke catches when he looks at her.

She doesn’t know what to expect. They hadn’t really discussed her comment, and in hindsight, she really wishes they had. She has only known for five minutes, but this being is already her baby.

He looks at her stomach, and he anticipates the dread he felt when he and Karin had their scare, or when Sakura ever tried to squeeze any commitment from him. Instead, he feels something light and floaty start swirling in his stomach, and his dumb, lopsided smile appears. Hinata relaxes, and then she smiles.

They stand in the washroom for ten minutes, just smiling at each other like two people who went ahead and actually created the thing they never had but had always wanted.

15.

Sasuke never really liked Shikamaru or Sai. Even though he has worked with them for six years, he doubts they will ever actually be friends. But they are all cut from the same cloth, so the animosity has dwindled into a begrudging respect. He now sees the two of them as his equals.

Chouji, on the other hand, was always a non-entity. Sasuke had never bothered noticing him before. But the four of them all seem to end up picking their kids up after school, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that Chouji is one of the most impossibly kind people Sasuke has ever met. He wonders if he would feel the same way if he hadn’t left. It’s too late to change it now, but he still thinks about who he could have been.

Their kids start at the academy next year, something Sai and Sasuke aren’t particularly excited about, and they only speak of their doubts to each other. Being damaged creates its own kind of bond, especially if you were damaged in a similar way. They want their children to remain ignorant to the meaning of the porcelain masks and their fearsome reputations, something that won’t happen if they go on to the academy.

Shikamaru leans against the fence, chewing nicotine gum, since he draws the line at smoking in front of kids. Chouji and Sai are having a polite, if strained conversation about the weather. Sasuke stands beside Shikamaru, and he looks up at the clouds.

“I never thanked you for sending me on that mission,” Sasuke says. He doesn’t have to specify which one. Shikamaru snorts.

“I didn’t think you’d start sleeping with her.” Shikamaru deadpans, “I just wanted someone to check on Ino.”

“At the time, I thought it was because you didn’t like me.” Sasuke looks directly at Shikamaru, who doesn’t bother denying his claim. They still didn’t really like each other.

“Temari says that spite always backfires on me.” Shikamaru smiles, and Sasuke smirks. It’s true. Sasuke wouldn’t be here if Shikamaru wasn’t innately petty when it came to Naruto or Ino’s emotional well-being. “I guess the village is better off for it. Knowing you two,” and he points to Sai, “you’ve probably spawned the next generation of Anbu captains.” Sasuke makes a face, and Sai’s mouth becomes a thin line. Since Sakura and Naruto are both childless, it seems that people have decided that Sai and Sasuke are responsible for breeding the greats of the next generation. Sasuke doesn’t really like knowing this, and he knows the thought really pisses off Sai.

“Let our children have their childhood.” Sai says with his fake smile, in a clipped tone. Shikamaru stuffs another wad of gum into his mouth, on top of the piece already there.

They stand in an awkward silence and the bell rings. They all wince at the noise, and Shikamaru and Sasuke move away from the gate so the children can storm through. Shikamaru and Chouji come because neither of their fathers walked them home from school, and because Ino is usually too busy pick up the kids. Sai and Sasuke are here because they crave normalcy. Hinata and Tenten happily let their kids make their way home alone, but Sai and Sasuke like coming to school and seeing their children tumble out, breathless and excited.

Being a father is a responsibility Sasuke takes seriously, and as he sees his youngest come out and look around for him, something inside him constricts and he kneels down, on the balls of his feet, to see her at eye level. When she sees him, her smile is big and lopsided. She sticks her arms straight out and runs towards him, and he catches her. “Daddy, daddy,” she says, in her impossibly quiet voice, “tell me I’m a bird!” Sasuke stands up, picking her up and setting her on his shoulders. “You,” he says, “are the fastest bird in Konoha.” She chirps with excitement, and waves to Shikamaru, Sai and Chouji. Sasuke insists on being called dad because being referred to as father makes him feel old, and he likes to think that he is a lot more fun than his own dad ever was.

Chouji and Sai wave back, while Shikamaru offers a high five. She laughs, and leans over. Shikamaru steps back, and looks at Sasuke with a smirk. “You’re way more likeable when your kids are around.” Sasuke snorts, and remains silent. Shikamaru isn’t wrong.

Eventually, the rest of the group come out. It’s interesting to see how their children are both like their parents but not. The curve of a jaw or a distinct walk are always enough to demonstrate that no, their children are not their parents, and as such will have completely different fates. Sometimes Itachi is there in his eldest child’s walk, and Hinata says their daughter reminds her of Neji, when he was little.

Shikamaru’s son is a miniature version of him. Chouji’s daughter looks just like her mother. Ino’s son clearly came from the Prettiest Girl of All Time. Sai’s sons are more expressive than either of their parents, and it makes Sasuke wonder if that is the difference between having parents makes on children. That they feel freer to show their feelings. He grips onto his daughter’s legs a little tighter. He can’t guarantee anything, but he and Sai both take the business of coming home in one piece seriously. It’s different when you just have a partner, then when there are little people who depend on you to be safe. It’s a law of the universe.

His eldest, a boy, comes running out last. He is habitually late. “Dad,” he says, “I know what I want to be.” Sasuke tilts his head, looking at his son’s serious, Hinata face.

“And what would that be?” Sasuke asks. His son’s mask cracks as he giggles.

“I want to be a horse.” His son makes a silly face, apparently an expression he thought a horse would have. Sasuke bends down, making his daughter, who is still on his shoulders, laugh.

“You are already the fastest horse in Konoha.” His son takes off then, running through the gate, and Sasuke knows better than to ask him to slow down. He only wants his children to move forward.

16.

When he steps through the door, Hinata is already speaking to their son. She kneels at eye level, and her elbows best on her thighs. She looks absolutely engrossed in their conversation, as their son talks with his hands. Neither of them do that. He must have picked it up at school. His son has Sasuke’s eyes, dark and expressive. He will be one of three people who wield the sharinngan, and Sasuke isn’t looking forward to having to explain the danger that puts him in.

Their daughter has milky eyes, expressionless and difficult to read without the rest of her face. Hiashi agreed to leave her unsealed, which means she will never be caged, but she will also have to watch her back. Sasuke sometimes wishes that they had been born without their bloodline traits. Maybe they could be a doctor or lawyer or a baker; something far less dangerous.

Their daughter runs up, demanding Hinata’s attention. Hinata lifts her into a hug, while juggling her conversation with their son. She is always good at making both their children feel loved. Sasuke is always uncertain that his children know how much he cares for them. His dad had been bad at expressing affection, and Sasuke doesn’t think he is much different. Hinata insists otherwise, but in his darker moments, he thinks she says that just because she loves him.

Their kids scamper off to play, and Hinata stands up. She smiles at him. “Welcome home.” She wears her fatigues, and her hands fall to her side. He smiles in response, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What’s wrong?” Hinata asks. Sasuke makes a face, and he walks into the kitchen to get an apple. Hinata follows him, waiting for his answer.

“Shikamaru said that Sai and I spawned another generation of Anbu captains “, Sasuke bites into the apple. He speaks between chewing and swallowing. He isn’t mad enough to do both. “You know: state sanctioned murderers.” He shrugs, taking another bite. Hinata tuts.

“You and Sai are Anbu.”

“That’s how I know what I am talking about.” Sasuke takes another bite. He chews loudly, and Hinata sighs, walking towards him.

“He has always been fixated on the next step.” Hinata thinks Shikamaru is a dick. But she doesn’t say that, because Sasuke has to work with him. Sasuke sets his half-eaten apple down.

“They have our traits.” Sasuke looks right at her. “They won’t be given a choice, you know that, right?” Hinata crosses her arms. She does know. It is hard enough keeping her father at bay, since Hanabi declared she wouldn’t have children. The two of them can’t keep the world from their children.

When they were pregnant with their first, they had both decided that their children would not have childhoods like theirs. No one would grow up to be an Itachi or a Neji or a Sasuke. They would not lose their kindness due to the actions of adults who should have known better. Hinata told her father that her children were hers. Their relationship was already too damaged to truly mend, but she would give him a chance to be different with his grandchildren. It hurt her to see her father’s softness, but she is grateful that he listened. 

“All we can do is make sure we are there for them.” She replies, leaning a hip against the counter. They want to protect their children from every misery and horror in this world; but what is life, beauty, if one never experiences ugliness? Eventually their children will grow up and make their own choices, and Sasuke and Hinata will have to step back and trust that their children will do what is right for them.

When he hears their daughter squeal and a loud crash in the other room, Sasuke picks up his apple and heads to the living room.

17.

Sasuke hates celebrating his birthday, so he had more or less assumed he would feel the same about all birthdays. They were always painful reminders that he didn’t have a family.

But now his son is eight, and Sasuke stands in his house, overrun with children and their parents and he is surprised by how much more enjoyable these gatherings become as the years go by. It feels like every person from his childhood now has a family, and it is nice to get everyone together.

He still stays on the edge of parties. But he doesn’t shy away from them, and when his son demands his participation, he does so happily. Sasuke leans against the wall, and Kakashi and Kurenai walk up to him. Mirai, the babysitter, is here to help corral the kids. Sasuke knew the Kakashi and Kurenai were probably bored with each other, and told them to come along.

Since Asuma died, they had been spending more time together. Kurenai had taken Kakashi in as a lost cause, after catching him asleep at his desk one too many nights in a row. Sasuke is happy that they found each other, because he can only imagine how annoying it would be to have to fend off Kiba, Shikamaru and Naruto’s overtures of friendship. He is pretty sure Kurenai and Kakashi use each other as an excuse to be left alone by their former genin, which Sasuke fully understands.

Kurenai carries a glass in her left hand, and Sasuke has noticed that when people come up to them, she shakes their hands while Kakashi holds onto his drink, her purse and his book. Sasuke snorts. Everyone could be great if they had someone who would care for their emotional needs on that level. He is just relieved that someone far more social and emotionally aware than Guy or Yamato monopolizes Kakashi’s time. There are a few bets floating around as to whether or not they are dating, but Sasuke and Sai both know for a fact, from the several times they have had to interrupt Kakashi’s evenings, that their former sensei sit in companionable silence while Kurenai knits and Kakashi reads. Occasionally, they debate the finer points of _Icha Icha_ plots. It’s wholesome.

Kakashi’s eyes wrinkle, which means that he is smiling, and Kurenai hums. “It never stops being strange to see you at these things, Sasuke.” Kakashi drawls. Kurenai frowns, before smoothing over his remark. “It’s nice to see everyone together.”

“It’d be nicer if you put your porn away.” Sasuke addresses Kakashi, but Kurenai full well knows that Sasuke is perfectly aware of her penchant for romance novels. She grabs the novel out of Kakashi’s hand, and after handing Sasuke her drink, zips the book into her purse. She is silent, and when Kakashi pouts she shoots him a glare that even intimidates Sasuke.

They are all distracted with Naruto comes in, late, holding a present and shouting. He is someone who children innately love. He is able to speak to children without sounding like an adult. He makes a point of coming to every birthday party, and Sasuke likes to think that his and Sai’s respective children are Naruto’s favourites.

Kakashi gives a salute as he follows Kurenai to Hinata. Sasuke smirks, and Sai sidles up to him. Sasuke looks at his partner with a flat disinterest.

“I never liked you, Sasuke,” Sai says, taking a sip of water. Sasuke rolls his eyes. Sai always chooses the strangest times to remind him of their mutual apathy.

“I don’t really like me either,” Sasuke replies. Neither man looks at each other. Sasuke’s daughter and Sai’s younger son are hiding under the coffee table, whispering to each other. It is the latest evidence of how interwoven their lives have become.

“But our children are friends,” Sai pauses, “and I know I don’t say this as much as I should, but I am happy that our children get along.” Sasuke nods.

“I’m glad too.” Sasuke pauses, turning to look at Sai. “Have you spoken to Sakura lately?” Sai’s face is unreadable. He is as protective of Sakura as Sasuke is of Naruto.

“I spoke to her on the phone. She said you apologized,” Sai can’t resist a final tut, “finally.” Sasuke glares and rolls his shoulders back.

“I don’t really deserve forgiveness, so I could afford to take my time.” Sasuke looks to Naruto, who is covered with children.

“He should have been a father,” Sai remarks, “not us. He would be better at it.” Sasuke agrees. If he were a kid again, he would want a dad like Naruto. But he knows Naruto’s goals conflict with having a family.

“He is going to make Hokage soon. I don’t think he regrets it.” Sasuke turns back to Sai. “Remember when he declared that our children were honorary Uzumakis?” Sasuke says, and Sai snorts with laughter. Kakashi and Yamato had reacted to their news with dignity and restraint. Naruto was overjoyed, and was the one who called Sakura to let her know. It was nice, feeling like their kids had an uncle.

“Ah, yes. I suppose he has our children.” Sai replies. Their silences aren’t awkward. Sasuke would even argue that they were infinitely better than most of their conversations.

“If you had never left, we wouldn’t be here,” Sai says. Sasuke nods.

“I wouldn’t say it was worth it,” Sasuke replies, “and there is a lot that I regret. But I think it all worked out okay.”

“This pains me to admit,” Sai’s voice is monotone, which means he is about to say something sincere. “But everything good in my life happened because you decided to leave.” Sasuke nods.

“I would say the same thing.”

At that moment, Sasuke’s daughter and Sai’s son launch themselves from beneath the coffee table, attaching themselves to Naruto’s lower legs. Naruto exaggerates being knocked over before bending down. He picks each child up so that they are upside down, squealing, and he walks over to the two men, asking about whether or not they knew that there were two crocodiles hiding under the table.

18.

Kurenai told Hinata that she only really started liking herself when she reached her thirties. “It’s the decade where you begin to come to terms with who you are,” she had said. Hinata was now thirty-four, and Sasuke thirty-five. Both their children were now genin. She still remembers when they were babies, perfect and sweet-smelling and innocent.

Now they are both too tall for Hinata to pick up, and they have reached the age where children start keeping secrets. It makes her a little sad, but she knows it is a sign that they are maturing. She gets into bed, lying next to Sasuke, who has become the kind of man who does the crossword puzzle in bed. He taps his pen against the newspaper. They have the day off, and both their children are out on missions.

“Five letters,” he says. “A bug in human form. The third letter is ‘u’,” he looks up at her from beneath his brow. Hinata tilts her head, humming.

“Louse.” She says, and he leans to kiss the top of her head when the word fits. He could nod or raise his pen, but they are alone and in their room, so he allows greater affection. Their kids now know where they came from and are repulsed by it.

“Do you think we’ve stayed the same?” Hinata asks, “like, do you think our relationship is the same?” Sasuke puts the paper and pen on his bedside table, thinking. Hinata can tell, because he grinds his teeth.

He slithers down onto the bed, so they are shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the ceiling. He clicks his tongue. “Yes and no.” He rolls onto his side. “You’re still the only person I could ever see myself with, but we’re not nineteen anymore.” He pauses. “I suppose I would say that I still feel the same intensity, certainty for you, but that it is more mature. Our relationship isn’t just about us, anymore. We have a family now.” Sasuke shrugs. He rests his chin on his hand, looking down at her. She puts a hand on her stomach. It is softer, after pregnancy. When she sees her stomach, she smiles in the mirror, thinking of the two little sprouts that became babies and were now full on people.

She smiles, and looks up at him. “We should make another baby.” Sasuke’s eyes go wide. He has been a father two times over, and while he has thought about it, he had promised himself that the next time they decided to get pregnant, it wouldn’t be because the two of them decided that they just didn’t care. Especially since their kids now know where babies come from.

“That’s a lot of responsibility.” He pokes her forehead and she blinks. She sticks out her tongue. Sasuke snorts, “that’s not very grown up.”

She sits up on her elbows, and she opens her mouth to rebut, but he kisses her instead. She pulls away, and he grunts. “That’s not very grown up.” He mutters a _whatever_ and kisses her properly this time. She smiles into his mouth, and she opens up her legs so he has somewhere to land. She puts her hands on his stomach, and her hand rests over his liver when she pulls back. He kisses her neck, and his scruff scratches. She can tell it is going to leave a rash, like it did when they were barely twenty.

“Is that a yes?” He glares at her. Hinata’s smirk is an expression few have seen. Sasuke likes to think that it is a face she makes just for him.

“No, it’s not a yes.” He kisses her again, but he is already doing the math in his head. She draws a leg up, and she is still flexible enough that she can tap is against his elbow. “Freak,” he mutters into her lower lip. She smiles, “you kiss the mother of your children with that mouth?” Sasuke doesn’t take the bait, but he does put a hand up her shirt.

It is long past the first time. Their bodies have changed together. She pulls her shirt off, and his hands run over her softened stomach, feeling the silver seams that formed with their babies. With each year, he feels like he better understands his parents. They weren’t particularly affectionate, but he always felt like they loved each other. He is old enough that he can say this without feeling squeamish: he hopes their respective parents had moments like this, having sex just because it felt good. Well, that’s why he is here. Hinata may feel differently.

Hinata pushes his pants down, and he smiles into her hair. She looks up at him and kiss his chin. “There,” she says, and there they are. One big sigh, and they are one, once again. He begins to move, and she is kissing his jaw, when she stops and thumps his chest. Her eyes are big, and she looks a little ashamed.

“We forgot the condom.” Sasuke grins in response.

“Hmm, I thought you wanted another baby.” He stays still, and several feelings move across Hinata’s face. “You didn’t say yes.”

“It wasn’t a ‘no’ either.”

“Anything less than a yes is a no,” Hinata cocks her head, and Sasuke groans. She has a point, and he can tell she is being annoying for her own amusement. He decides to withdraw, just to see what she will do, but she taps her heel against his calf. He looks into her eyes, and they stay still for a moment or two. “Yes.” He says softly. More than anything. She makes him want to have a zillion babies. Hinata makes new life possible. She is earth. She is home.

“You’re sure?” Sasuke nods, and as he moves forward, Hinata opens herself to him.

Time both speeds up and slows down when they are in their knot. She moves a hand between them, and he moves in the best way for both of them. She is cute when she pants, when she frowns, and when she gasps. But his favourite, if asked, is the face she makes when they turn to look at each other after.

It’s a smile like he just told her a secret; a smile for when something moves just between the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much more to say. There is one final chapter to go, which should be up later in the summer. As usual: if there are any bad typos, feel free to let me know. I would love to know what you think!


	4. A Real Happy Ending

_“I have found happiness/ in a life that’s truly mine”_

_Haim, “Found it in Silence”_

_“For every woman still waiting for an apology”_

_Eve Ensler, The Apology_

1

When he comes inside of her, for a brief moment, Sakura thinks there is a chance that she and Sasuke could, one day, be happy. It feels like they punch through the barrier between them and that they are finally able to connect. When he falls to her, and he buries his face into her shoulder, he allows her to hold him, and it feels like they are one instead of two. She knows that no one approves of their relationship, but Sakura knows, in the core of her very being, that they are soul mates.

It is a conviction that has helped her survive the last seven years she went without him. At the tender age of nineteen, she believes that all she has to do is sit back and allow the rest of her life to happen. Sakura holds him, not wanting to let go. They don’t say anything. She didn’t come, but her orgasm is secondary to simply being with him. It makes her tingle, the idea that her girlish fantasies have actually come true.

Sasuke, sweaty, carefully pushes himself off of her. He kisses her temple before he withdraws. This is the most affection he has ever shown her. Not only did he allow her to hold him for more than a minute, he reciprocated her tenderness. He wordlessly stands up, and after taking the condom off, walks to the bathroom to dispose of it. Sakura watches him move. He is graceful. He doesn’t plod or thump around. Sasuke is always careful to not make a sound. She doesn’t know if it is for him, or for her.

He never really speaks to her. She doesn’t know if it is because he truly has nothing to say, or if he merely doesn’t want her to know what he really thinks about their life together. She isn’t stupid. She sees the way he smirks at her attempts to lure him out of his shell. She doesn’t think he enjoys the chase so much as he finds it amusing that even now, she feels the need to win him over.

Tonight, she made them dinner. Sasuke had come in, an hour late. But he was in a good mood. He kissed her first, and had even run his fingers through her hair. “All of this is for me.” It’s not a question, but a simple observation. He even smiled, and Sakura tucked it into her heart as a precious memory, the first of many they would make together.

The war was over, and everyone in their class was beginning to make their way in life. The dead had been buried. Ino had returned to Berlin, and Tenten and Hinata had both ditched Konoha. Shikamaru was engaged to Temari, and Chouji to Karui. Naruto would one day be Hokage.

Everyone was on a path to a new life, and Sakura and Sasuke had finally been reunited. They don’t talk very much, but he had been through experiences that defy words. His frigidity it to be expected. She had showered and brushed her teeth while he had washed the dishes. She lay on their bed, wrapped in a towel, when he came into their room. He had arched an eyebrow at her, and smirked when she threw her towel across the room.

She always feels naked when he looks at her. But when she is actually bare, Sakura feels a surge of confidence she lacks in the rest of their relationship. As he takes off his clothes, she smiles lazily, making herself as open as possible. He doesn’t say anything, not even when he charges towards her. He kisses her like he means it, with teeth and tongue. It is clumsy and real. It makes her feel like she is with an actual person.

They haven’t yet figured out their angles, but it doesn’t matter when he puts his mouth against her and she tosses her head back. Nothing matters but the way he touches her. From him, Sakura has learned to live in silence. She doesn’t say his name, or beg or plead. She hums or whines, but she never utters an actual word. It would break the image of love that they have worked so hard to create.

She doesn’t know why, but although it feels nice, he has never made her come. Sakura figures that it is probably her fault. Surely, she must be broken if the great Uchiha Sasuke can’t get her to orgasm. It doesn’t matter that she can do it herself; it would only count if he did it.

When he looks up from between her legs, and their eyes connect, her heart drops. For a second, a blip, she sees an incredible sadness. “Do you want to stop?” Sakura whispers. Sasuke’s mouth moves into a grim line, but he shakes his head. Unsure, she backs away from him when he gets up on the bed. “We don’t have to, Sasuke.” She says this softly. His eyebrows scrunch in confusion.

“Why would I want to stop? Do you?” Sasuke asks, reaching for a condom. She is silent as he rips open the foil and rolls it down on himself. He looks back up at her, and it is like the sadness no longer exists. She shakes her head, and her wet hair sprays droplets of water around her.

“Is that a no?” Sasuke asks, squinting at her like he is reading her from a distance.

“It is a yes.” Sakura breathes in, “I want to have sex.” She opens herself again, and he climbs over the messy duvet so that he rises over her. She kisses him, just a peck, and he blushes. It is a small victory, but she will take it.

He smiles at her, and when he enters her, he looks into her eyes. She wraps her legs around him, and she runs her hands along his sides. He has yet to hit the truth of her, but he gets closer each time. In all honesty, it feels like he pulls back when he is inside her. Like he withholds the intangible piece that would finally allow them to connect.

When they move together, she thinks they ought to feel like one. But for some reason, she becomes incredibly aware that they are two very different people. She adjusts her hold, so her arms are around him, but it only makes him feel further away, like the more she tries to bring him close the more he resists. Like the gap between them only widens.

But when he finally buries himself in her, it feels like their relationship works and nothing can break their bond. He lets her hold him, and she feels as if she is truly needed.

2

Sakura looks out the window of a hospital room. The sun is setting, and she has pulled a night shift. The sky is pink and orange, and in all honestly, it reminds her of a popsicle than anything else. A patient of hers had died in this room five hours ago, before her shift had begun. The patient was an elderly woman, who told Sakura stories about her girlhood. The boys she kissed, the missions she completed, the way cold water stung whenever she jumped into a lake.

Sakura isn’t sad. She has lived through worse than the death of an elderly patient. If asked, she would say that her life was decided before it had even begun. Her mother said that she had chosen her name as soon as she found out she was pregnant. Her mother dreamed that she would be a great ninja, that she would inherit the roseate hair, jade eyes and temper of her family. She was Sakura before she was even born.

Her mom knowing what to name Sakura, as soon as she peed on the stick, was the first time anyone had unwavering faith in her and who she would be. It wasn’t the last, but Sakura had shattered all her own credibility when she had gone to Sasuke. If not for Kakashi or Naruto, the chidori would have been rammed through her heart. Of this, she is certain. Everyone, especially Tsunade, had looked at her differently.

Unwrapping the sandwich in her hand, she tries not to feel guilty. Sai still blames himself, but she knows that she had made her own choice. She would have gone, if Sasuke had let her. For a long time, she had anchored herself to an idea of him. She has always had her name, but the truth is that she doesn’t yet know who she is. Everyone else on her team knows who they are without their name. Even Sai and Yamato, who never knew their names or their parents, developed an independent sense of self. Sakura just is; she just does as she does, keep on keeping on.

More often than not, she feels like inert matter. Soulless, purposeless, waiting for someone to pick her up and make her into who she ought to be.

She eats the sandwich, staring out at the pink sky. Sitting on the hospital bed and kicking out her legs, she remembers a line from her favourite book: “very early in my life it was too late.” Sakura gave away her girlhood before she even knew what it meant. It wasn’t stolen, but there had been no informed consent when she joined the ninja academy. Had she known that she would have to suffer the pain of Sasuke’s departure, or looking into Naruto’s eyes as the humanity left him, she is certain that she would have become a civilian.

She was always selfish and weak. Why would she go through all that unimaginable pain, if she didn’t have to? Wrinkling her nose, she tries not to think of all the mayonnaise on her sandwich. It’s indulgent, too rich for her new life of restraint and chastity. To make room for Sasuke, she has rid herself of all other pleasures. She only drinks in public, with other people. She avoids eating anything high in fat or sugar. She trains once a day, in the morning. Sakura hopes that if she lives this way, that her life will change.

Life feels like it is just passing her by. She is the only girl from her group of friends left in Konoha. Ino is in Berlin, Tenten in Kyoto, Hinata in Florence: all these big cities, with so many people that it would be impossible to know them all. Without her friends, she has a new appreciation for how stifling this place really is.

Sai told her that she could be Hokage one day, and Naruto is always telling her to challenge herself. The two of them are so optimistic about her future, as if the war has given them all endless possibilities. She hasn’t found a nice way to remind them that she is a woman who has found her soul mate. There is nothing for her to do, but to marry Sasuke and have his babies. She will keep her career for as long as she can, but she will probably have to quit to take care of the children.

A dark part of her asks if it is even ethical to have children with Sasuke, since he will probably care about them less than he does her. She shakes her head with a squeal, disgusted that even one bit of her could doubt him. He wouldn’t be with her if he didn’t want to be there. Right?

Sakura shakes herself out, and sees that the sky has now become a dark orange, a crush of colour. Pouting, she looks down at her sandwich, wondering what she ought to do. She has reached the midway point of a sandwich, where she could save some for later or devour it all. She looks up at the clock, and she has another fifteen minutes on her break.

Looking at her sandwich, in her most pretentious voice, she says “to be or not to be?” Holding the sandwich like Yorick’s skull, and she briefly wonders if this is what crazy people do. She decides to go for it, since all the people she would otherwise talk about this with are gone.

“I think Sai is going to Kyoto,” Sakura addresses her sandwich, “and Naruto is going to be working with Shikamaru in the Hokage’s office.” Sakura pauses, trying to remember what Sasuke does. He never really tells her. “I don’t really know where Sasuke is.” She frowns, not liking her own answer. She shrugs, knowing that she can’t come up with anything better.

“And I…” she trails off, trying to remember what she is doing. Working at the hospital is nothing new. She takes another bite of her sandwich, thinking. Lately, she feels like a secondary character in a story that is ostensibly about her. A story? No, her life. She is no longer the centre. Instead, she had made herself smaller and smaller, minimizing herself so she could give more, give it all, to the love of her life, Uchiha Sasuke.

She looks at her sandwich, and devours the rest in four bites. It was the only witness to her embarrassing realization. If it no longer existed, nobody could accuse her of knowing any better, of compromising herself for a boy.

3

So—what _is_ the problem with Sasuke? Sakura can’t pretend that everything is fine. He tries, in his own way. He never raises his voice, and he always tidies up after himself. He even bought her flowers last week. Sakura looks at the pink cosmos, whose water she has changed every day so that they would last longer.

She leans against the kitchen counter, looking at the flowers, thinking about her lunch with Naruto. He has been in a mood since Hinata rejected him. Sakura can’t blame her. Neji died because of him. Sakura wouldn’t be able to look past that. And there is a lot she can overlook. Like Sasuke trying to kill her and never apologizing for it. She tries to repress it, every day.

She doesn’t think that is the problem, _per se_ , but she knows that his attempt on her life is a part of it. When Naruto was here for lunch, Sakura had tried to speak to him about it. Naruto had been sitting across from her at the table, joking about Sai’s crush on Tenten, when she had cleared her throat.

“Naruto,” she asks, uncertain. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” He smiles, popping some instant ramen into his mouth. She had offered to cook something, but he had come over with two packages of the stuff. Sakura stirred her broth with her chopsticks.

“I feel like Sasuke and I aren’t connecting.” Sakura frowns. Naruto looks up at her, in the middle of shoving noodles into his mouth. His mouth hangs open, and the noodles all slide out. Sakura swallows. “It just feels like we can’t get over what happened.” She sighs, “do you think it is because he has never apologized to me?” Naruto furrows his brow and squints his eyes.

“For what?” he asked. Sakura chews on the lining of her cheek.

“Trying to kill me.” She says quietly. Naruto’s upper lip curls, and he grimaces.

“He never apologized to you?!” his eyes got big, and he slammed his chopsticks onto the table. Sakura had to calm him down, and reassure him that things were fine, she is sure Sasuke will get around to apologizing to her. Naruto, sensing that she wanted to talk about something else, mentioned that Sai had discussed buying a ticket to Kyoto. _Do you think he and Tenten are going to bang?_ Sakura had groaned, and then laughed. She was thankful that he changed the subject. Sakura isn’t ready to think about everything Sasuke actually owes her.

Looking at the cosmos, she crosses her arms. Is the problem that Sasuke always looks like he would rather be somewhere else? That she feels more like an obligation than a girlfriend? She will call Ino sometimes, and she will ask all these same questions. Sakura can tell that she bores Ino, but she can’t stop. It’s a sick past time, trying to find the exact problem with Sasuke. Because Sakura knows what it is, she simply can’t bear to look it in the face.

One day, Sakura asked Ino if this was the summit of her potential: obsessing over Sasuke and working in the hospital. Ino, who had aged overnight, sighed, and replied _you have to find out for yourself, Sakura_. She had blinked, looking out at the blue sky. She thanked Ino, and hung up the phone. She bites her lip, because in that moment, she was forced to accept that while she was a part of the problem, nothing she could do would solve the problem of Sasuke.

**

So, _what is the problem with Sasuke?_

The problem is that the bar for Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship runs on the logic of _not that bad_. It works like this: take a horrible thing you have experienced, and then compare it to something infinitely worse.

An example: Sasuke doesn’t talk to Sakura _but_ he isn’t trying to kill her. Sasuke attempted to put his hand through her heart _but_ he didn’t actually do it. Sasuke makes her feel like she is alone when they are together _but_ at least they are in the same physical space.

You can survive, for a very long time, on telling yourself that something isn’t as bad as it really could be. You sidestep the whole question of how something makes you feel now. You must be okay, because it could be infinitely worse. And if you’re okay, nothing needs to change.

Sakura tells herself that he is damaged, that he isn’t a normal person. That allowances should be made, because of everything that has happened to him. This is another thing she does. She denies him agency, so that everything in his life is simply a thing that happened to him. You can’t be at fault if something happens to you. She can’t see that she is so heavily invested in denying him agency and calling him damaged that she had warped him into an ugly being, a thing, not a partner.

But at least he didn’t ram his hand through her chest. Never mind that his silence is killing her. They are living a bare life, but Sakura long ago decided that life without Sasuke wasn’t a life at all.

4

But there comes a day where it all changes. The day that he made it clear that he thought their ending was far from happy, Sasuke comes home late. He knows that she angry. She isn’t as tipsy as she was when she stormed out of the bar. Naruto sat her down and made her eat something, and he had walked her home, reassuring her that Sasuke was still adjusting. _Give him a chance_.

The problem is that she keeps giving him chances, and Sakura is tired of waiting for him to adjust, of being empathetic, of trying to figure out his needs for him. She is sitting on the couch, tapping her foot. She came home and threw out the flowers, which she could finally admit were dead. Sakura’s arms are crossed, and she keeps replaying his cruel laugh and his knuckles tapping against the table top. She can’t remember the last time she was ever angry at Sasuke. She went out of her way to accommodate him. But sitting here, seven years of resentment begin to make themselves known.

Sai had bought her an ugly decorative plate for her coffee table, when she moved into her apartment. He thought she could use it to put odd and ends, like her house keys and rubber bands. But she doesn’t use it. She didn’t think Sasuke liked clutter. But sitting there, she adds _not knowing what he even likes_ to her list of grievances.

He comes home two hours late. He isn’t drunk, but he won’t look her in the eye. “Sasuke,” she tries to keep her voice even, “why did you say those things at the bar?” Sakura is prepared to forgive everything, if he can apologize for making ending up with her sound like he was resigning himself to a life of misery. They are nineteen. They should be so in love it’s gross.

But instead, he walks into the living room, but stands by the exit. His hands are in his pockets, and he looks like he is preparing himself for a scolding. _Is that what he really thinks of me?_ Sakura’s mouth twists.

“I didn’t mean them,” he replies. His voice is flat, and she can tell he is lying.

“Sasuke,” she says, “you really hurt my feelings. Is that how you feel about being with me?” Sakura holds herself still. She waits for impact. Sasuke doesn’t say anything. He blinks, and looks away.

Sakura’s eyes sting, but she won’t acknowledge that she is crying. “Are you only here because you think you have to be?” Sakura feels something in her die. “Do you really love me?”

“I love you, Sakura,” Sasuke says quietly, “but not the way you want me too.” She doesn’t gasp, or scream, or fall apart into a million little pieces.

“Are you even a little sorry for everything you put me through?” Sakura asks. Sasuke sighs, like she is bothering him. Suddenly, her anger returns, in full force. She knows she has his attention when he gives her a wary look. “Sasuke, why are you with me?”

“Because you love me.” Sasuke doesn’t really know how to phrase it any other way. She was always trying to prove her devotion to him. It seemed cruel to move back and not try to make it work. He has nothing better to do. He can see that it wasn’t the answer Sakura wanted to hear. “You should have killed me, if this is our life together.” Sakura says it quietly, staring right into his eyes.

He doesn’t know what compels him to say what he does next, but months later, he will be grateful that he did. But it will take a few months and thousands of miles to get there. “Sakura, I am really trying to love you.” Sasuke says this as if it were a defense for his emotional absence.

“Well, I _apologiz_ e for costing so much _effort_.” Sakura retorts, standing up. Sasuke flinches.

“I didn’t say that,” he replies. Sakura throws her hands in the air.

“But it’s what you meant, wasn’t it?” Sakura hisses, “it is always about _you_ : how traumatized you are, how you couldn’t help being who you are. But you know what? That is _bullshit_. You have always had a choice, and you have consistently chosen to be an absolute bastard to everyone.”

“I didn’t ask you to love me,” he replies, “I didn’t ask for you to put your life on hold and wait for me. It’s not my fault that you have shitty taste in men.” A little known truth about Sasuke: he actually hates himself the most of all.

“I shouldn’t have to ask my boyfriend to love me!” Sakura, in a fit of pique, picks up the plate. “I have never asked for anything, all I do is _give_ and _give_ , and it is killing me Sasuke. You haven’t even apologized for nearly killing me!” She holds the plate, and they both know, as she winds her arm, that there is no coming back from this.

She hurls the plate at his head. Sasuke leaps away, and it hits the wall. They look at each other, her eyes narrow. “Leave.” She says, “ _now_.” Sasuke doesn’t need to be told twice. He walks over to the shelf, where he keeps Itachi’s ashes and his family photo album. He picks them both up, and he walks over to the door without saying a word.

She flops back down on the couch, and for some reason, it breaks her heart when he doesn’t slam the door. Sakura puts her head in her hands, and sobs. Like, the kind of hard ugly crying that involves snot and tears mixing and stinging hot eye pain. Sakura cries so hard that her lungs burn, and she feels like she might die from crying alone.

Sakura eventually settles down into a steady, weepy sob, and she lies on her side, like a dying animal. She hears the key turn in the lock, and for a second, she thinks he has come back. She leaps up, and throws herself at the door. “Oh no you don’t!” She yells.

“It’s me,” Naruto’s voice floats through the door. Sakura immediately yanks the door open, and stands back.

“What are you doing here?” Sakura wipes her face with her fingers. Naruto doesn’t say anything about the booger she missed on her cheek.

“Sasuke told me you kicked him out.” Naruto says, “can I come in?” Sasuke didn’t seem upset, so much as relieved when he told Naruto what had happened. She holds the door open as he walks in, and Naruto looks around the apartment, assessing the damage.

When Naruto sees the shards of what used to be the plate, he looks over at Sakura, who has stopped crying. “Is that the plate Sai bought you?” Sakura sighs.

“Yes,” she replies, “I threw it at Sasuke.” Naruto smiles.

“I wished I could have seen it,” he says, “I would give anything to watch you beat up that asshole the way you do to me and Sai.” Naruto laughs, and Sakura smiles, as she walks over to where she keeps the broom.

“Well, I guess I do give everyone a show.” Picking up the broom and dustpan, she walks back over to the pile of shards. She is subdued, and he can tell that there is nothing he can say that will take away the pain and hurt that she is in right now.

“Hey,” he walks over to her, hands in his pockets. Sakura looks up at him.

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell Sai this, but that was one really fucking ugly plate.” Sakura laughs and nods.

“He tries, you know.” She sweeps the shards up into a pile. “But still—I don’t want you to tell him about any of this. He’ll get worried, and he might not go to Kyoto.” Naruto nods.

“He really likes Tenten.” Naruto looks Sakura in the eye, “I could tell he wanted to say more about her. He probably would have, if Sasuke weren’t such an asshole.” Sakura shrugs as she kneels down to sweep up the shards.

“I think it would be nice for him to fall in love,” she says, “he’s sweet.” Naruto clucks his tongue.

“That may be so, but he has questionable taste. What if he buys Tenten an ugly plate?” Naruto crosses his arms, watching Sakura as she takes the dustpan over to the trash. The shards make a jingling noise as she dumps them in the garbage.

“Oh, Naruto, he won’t do _that_ ,” Sakura says, “and if he does, Tenten will probably appreciate it anyway. Can you imagine the kind of presents Neji and Lee have given her over the years? Sai has got this.” Sakura smiles, genuinely, and for the first time, Naruto feels like she is going to be okay.

He watches her move around the kitchen, and raises his eyebrow when she pulls out a bag of popcorn. “Want to stay and watch a movie?” Sakura asks. “I have a pull-out you can stay on tonight.” Naruto nods.

“Sounds good.” He flops onto the couch, and leans his head back. Sakura looks at his profile as he stares up at the ceiling. It’s nice, spending time with just him. It reminds her of how things used to be.

**

Sai is gone by the end of the week, and Sasuke is sent to Florence a week after that. Shikamaru had come to the hospital to tell Sakura that Sasuke was finally out of the village. He had cornered her right before her lunch break. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but she didn’t think Sasuke would be sent away.

“Where did he go?” Sakura asks, holding a file up to her chest. Shikamaru, bored, tucks a cigarette behind his ear.

“Do you really want to know?” Shikamaru refuses to indulge Sakura and Naruto like he used to. Should Sasuke stray again, Shikamaru will not hesitate to recommend that he be killed. That said, Shikamaru suspects that Sasuke’s time with Hinata might teach him some manners, and he will probably be relieved to spend time with a woman who isn’t obsessed with him. Shikamaru won’t say any of that to Sakura, though.

“Yes,” Sakura replies, “I want to know.” Sasuke never told her where he was sent most of the time.

“I sent him to Florence, to stay with Hinata while she is out there.” Shikamaru has his hands in his pockets. “Her byakugan is valuable, and I figured she can’t get him into too much trouble.”

Sakura nods, but her stomach twists. Intellectually, she does not want him back. But she has a hard time of breaking the habit of wanting him. She doesn’t know why, but she knows that he is now forever lost to her. No, he was never really hers. Hinata will be good for him. She is probably the only one who can see him. Sakura tries to blow it off, but she looks green. Shikamaru gives her a funny look.

“I’ll buy you lunch.” He says. Sakura frowns. She figured he would prefer a cigarette to food.

“I’m not hungry,” she replies, “but I need some fresh air.” She gestures towards the hall. She keeps her file with her as they walk towards the exit. Sakura still feels queasy, so Shikamaru doesn’t try to have a conversation with her.

Once they are outside, and an appropriate distance away from the hospital, Shikamaru takes his cigarette out from behind his ear, and lights it. “Do you have any plans?” he asks. Sakura blinks.

“Plans?” she asks. Her life, as she imagined it, just went up in flames.

“You know, the things you make for the future?” Shikamaru exhales, and a plume of smoke comes out.

“You know, I don’t have any. They all disappeared with Sasuke.” She frowns, and Shikamaru does his best to maintain a neutral face. “I don’t really know who I am without him.” Shikamaru makes a face, and she can tell that he is trying to empathize.

“I guess I wouldn’t know who I am without Ino.” She has been gone for months, but there is still a hole in his chest where she ought to be. He rubs his thumb against the ring on his pointer.

“That’s different.” Sakura replies.

“Obviously,” Shikamaru snorts. He and Ino never tried to force a relationship. “I mean more in the sense that she and I worked together closely. It is weird doing things without her, and not even being able to call her to get an opinion.” He misses Ino.

Sakura nods, for posterity. She knows that she and Sasuke didn’t even have a real friendship, in the end. Shikamaru and Ino truly love each other. Sakura doesn’t know if she and Sasuke even like each other. There is an unspoken difference: Shikamaru and Ino were always on the same page, whereas Sasuke and Sakura never got it right. Naruto reassured her that Sasuke chose to be in a relationship with her: _you didn’t have a gun to his head Sakura_. She always wants to counter with this: _did Sasuke know that?_

Shikamaru takes a puff of his cigarette. He looks at Sakura, who seems duller than she used to be. He can’t explain it: she has simply lost her pride. “Well, I guess you have time to figure out who you are without Sasuke.” Shikamaru looks up at the sky, before turning back to look right in her eyes. “For what it’s worth, Sai calls you a genius and you are the only other person Naruto listens to. Sasuke was important to you, but I don’t think he ever loved you the most.” Sakura’s brow furrows, and she looks confused.

“What do you mean?” she asks. _Is a woman really a woman if there is no man to love her?_ Shikamaru bends over to put his cigarette out on his sandal. He keeps the butt in his hand—he won’t litter in front of a hospital.

As he straightens his back, he looks into her eyes, solemn and unblinking. “I mean that the people who love you most still love you that much, if not more.” He pauses, wondering if he should be blunt. “You should ask Sai or Naruto what you should focus on. They definitely have more opinions than I do.” Shikamaru waves, and Sakura watches him as he walks away.

**

When assigned to the children’s ward, Sakura wears cherry barrettes in her hair. Kiba got her a cherry ring out of a vending machine in the hospital gift shop, and she wears it on her left ring finger. She feels adrift, and simply having a ring on her finger gives her a sense of stability. When people joke about her being married, she insists that she is just married to the job.

The morning after she broke up with Sasuke, Naruto had taken her out for breakfast while Sasuke packed his things so he could stay with Naruto. They had been eating, when Sakura said that she thought that she needed a change. His mouth was full of egg and pancake, and he has chewed thoughtfully. _Why don’t you leave Konoha?_ Naruto asked, _all the other girls are gone_. Sakura had been mulling this over. She knew that Tsunade knew people all over the world, and Sakura knows a few languages. She has options, and nothing to tie her down.

She was standing over a few files, when she feels a tap on her shoulder. She turns to see Naruto grinning at her. “Want to get lunch?” Naruto grins. Sakura smiles at him.

“Did you just bring instant ramen?” she teases. Naruto, smile still wide, holds up a packed lunch for her.

“Don’t worry, I brought you something else.” Sakura smiles, and she takes him to the roof of the hospital.

They sit on the edge, their legs dangling in the air. Naruto had already prepared his ramen, and he was happily slurping it down. Sakura pokes at her rice.

“I need a change, Naruto.” He nods, chewing on noodles. He swallows, and smacks his lips.

“You should leave Konoha,” he says, “it will be good for you.”

“Do you really want me gone?” Sakura asks. Naruto shakes his head.

“You can come back. I’m just saying that those three years with Jiraiya helped clear my head, and I came back better than ever.” Naruto smiles, and Sakura puts some rice in her mouth. “You should ask Tsunade for help. She wants to see you grow.”

“You think I can still grow?” Sakura asks. Naruto nods his head. “Are you sure? Because I’m turning twenty and I feel like my life is over.” Sakura picks up a piece of broccoli. Naruto snorts.

“You broke up with your boyfriend, your life isn’t over.” Naruto puts his bowl to his mouth to drink the broth. Sakura smiles to herself. _My life isn’t over_.

“Naruto.” Sakura says.

“Hmuph?” he slurps up his soup.

“Thanks for lunch. It means a lot that we still hang out.” She smiles, even when he burps.

“Sai and Sasuke are gone.” He says simply, “but, you know, you were always my favourite.”

“Stop lying,” she says, “it’s Sasuke.” Naruto laughs.

“It really depends on the day.” He looks out over the skyline. “But right now, you’re my favourite.” Sakura sighs.

“Even if I leave too?”

“The three of you have things to figure out,” he shrugs, “I have it all together.” He sips more broth, and Sakura looks down below. _Keep your eyes up_ , her mother said, _you end up where you look_. So Sakura turns her face up to the sky, and looks at the clouds.

5

It is Yamato who takes her to the train station. Naruto would do it, but he is on a mission. Sakura is sort of sad that he won’t be the last person he sees, but Yamato is good company. He walks her the whole way, and they spend time talking about Sakura’s new life. Tsunade has an old friend doing research at the University of Chicago, and she believes that it is the kind of medical puzzle Sakura would be interested in solving.

Sakura has never been outside of Japan, and she is excited to go to America. She had already found an apartment, and she has received a stipend for moving. It all feels very grown up. She understands why Ino, Tenten and Hinata left the village. The flutter in her stomach is the most optimistic she has felt about her future in a long time.

When they finally get to the train station. She turns to Yamato, who has his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks for walking me,” she says. Yamato nods.

“It was no problem,” he smiles, “one of us had to see you off.” Sakura nods.

“I’m going to miss you guys.” Sakura says, “I’ll try to come back soon.” Yamato frowns.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies, “Kakashi and I will take care of the guys for you. You’re free to never come back.” Yamato pauses. “But a postcard would be nice.” Sakura hesitates, but she hugs Yamato. He reciprocates, but it is a little awkward. He pats her back, letting her know when he has had enough.

“Thanks for everything,” she says, pulling away. “I’ll be in touch.

Twenty minutes later, she waves to Yamato from the train, and he waves back.

**

Sakura really wishes she could be angry when she finds out about Sasuke and Hinata. When Ino tells her the news, she expects Sakura to blow up. But Sakura had suspected that they would get together as soon as Shikamaru told her that he left the village. The truth is that Sakura doesn’t care; they had tried, it was over.

Hinata had called her a week later, to tell Sakura herself. It is clear that Ino hadn’t told Hinata that Sakura already knew. Sakura asked where Sasuke was. _Out_ , Hinata had replied, _he wants me to say that he hopes you are well_. Sakura laughs at that, because that is such a Sasuke thing to do. Runaway and make someone else deal with his shit. Maybe one day they will be able to look each other in the eye again. Sakura doubts it.

But she does like Hinata, and she respects her even more for calling. Sakura says the truth: she wishes she were mad, but she isn’t, not really. She is happy that Sasuke and Hinata found each other. They all live in a messed up world, but it’s nice to know that love is real. What goes unsaid: Hinata and Sasuke live in a world where entire families betray each other and fathers hit their daughters and brothers die senselessly. In a way, Hinata and Sasuke are the only two who can understand each other.

Sakura says she hopes they stay happy. Hinata replies that she doesn’t know if it is love, and Sakura replies that she wouldn’t have called if it weren’t serious. She can hear Hinata smile on the phone, and Sakura says that she has to go, but Hinata should call her again. They have more things to talk about than Sasuke. Hinata says _yes, how is Tuesday?_ Sakura will be home at 5 PM her time, and Hinata can call her any time then. Hinata says she will, and before she hangs up, she says this: _you sound really happy; I’m glad_. Sakura blinks, looking at the stack of files and books on her kitchen table. Smiling, she says _me too_.

Sakura isn’t angry, but she does give herself two days to wallow. She watches sad movies and listens to sad music, making herself cry on purpose. She even buys a chocolate cake from the grocery store, and instead of cutting into it, she puts a fork through the centre and eats it that way. It takes her a week to get through it all.

When she bought it, she asked that the lady write _Happy Birthday_. Just so she didn’t feel like such a loser, buying a cake for herself.

**

She wakes up to phone ringing at 4 AM. She picks up, and it is Sai. He sounds relieved to hear her voice. He explains how Naruto hid the fact that she had moved away. He was sorry that he wasn’t there. Is she okay? He starts dithering on, muttering something about _Frankenstein_ and cats and being alone.

“I’m fine, Sai.” Sakura rubs her eyes. She has been meaning to call him, but it figures that he would beat her to the punch.

“Fine isn’t a word you use when you are okay.” Sai replies, “Tenten told me.” Sakura, exhausted but awake, smiles.

“Tenten, huh?” Sakura’s teasing voice comes out. It makes Sai feel better just hearing it. “How is she?”

“She’s okay,” Sai’s smile is in his voice. “She is out right now. She hopes you are well.”

“You’re happy?” Sakura sits up, looking out her window. It is still dark.

“Very.” Sai replies.

“Me too.” Sakura replies, “I am really happy out here.”

“Without Sasuke?” Sakura smiles at the hopeful tone of his voice.

“Especially without Sasuke.” Snow begins to fall outside her window. This is her first winter in the Mid-West. Her colleagues complain about it, but Sakura is nonetheless excited. She is planning to send some packages back to Konoha for Christmas, a holiday she has never celebrated before.

“Did Naruto tell you that I threw a plate at his head?” Sakura asks.

“He mentioned it.” Sai frowns. “It was the one I bought you, that you thought was ugly, wasn’t it?” Sakura sighs.

“It was sacrificed for the greater good.” She looks at her clock. She has three hours before she needs to wake up. “Sai, can I call you in a few hours? It is pretty early here.”

“Oh, sorry,” Sai replies. “This was my first chance to call. I got too excited.” Sakura smiles.

“I’m happy that you’re happy, Sai.”

They say goodbye soon after. When she wakes up, she calls him while she prepares her breakfast. Tenten has come back from her errands. She can tell because Sai is using his happy voice. He tells her all the details of their time together in Kyoto. They are going to adopt a cat, when they get everything set up. He spends half an hour talking about Tenten: how she moves around the grocery store, the kind of movies she likes, the way she looks into space. He even has a coffeemaker now. Sai, buying a coffeemaker! Can you imagine all the other previously unthinkable things that are now possible?

Sai makes it his job to check in with Sakura. He takes charge of sending her birthday cards, and they speak at least once a month. She doesn’t know why, but she is perpetually surprised by his capacity to care for other people, which has only grown exponentially since Tenten. He even sends her care packages. They always include a card he painted himself. The whole team, except Sasuke, signs it. He makes Naruto, Kakashi and Yamato each contribute something. Naruto always gives her instant ramen, Kakashi chooses a different volume of _Icha Icha_ and Yamato will contribute an architecture magazine. Tenten eventually started helping with the care packages, since Sakura begins to receive cookies, bubble bath or other small trinkets that were obviously chosen by a woman. Tenten even started tucking in a card signed by her, Ino and Hinata.

They always make her smile, even though they have become heavier over time. While Tenten gets her things she actually likes, every so often, Sakura will boil a kettle and make some instant ramen She will then pull out a copy of _Icha Icha_ , or one of the architecture magazines, and draw a bath. She will sit in the bubbles, eat her ramen and then read a little bit, tucking her knees up to her chest, enjoying the heat.

6

Chicago really suits Sakura. She likes having four definitive seasons, and after a lifetime in a small town, she appreciates being able to melt into a crowd and not recognize anyone. Her research is progressing well, and all her colleagues respect her. She enjoys being a valued member of the team right off the bat. It is refreshing.

She has been here for two years, and in that time, she hasn’t seen anyone from Konoha. It is an expensive flight, and it’s hard to get enough time off to make a visit worth it. She hears from everyone regularly; she gets emails, letters and phone calls. She has a picture of Ino and her son on her fridge. Sai drew a picture of Tenten and their cat, which Sakura had framed and hung on the wall of her office. Everyone asks if Sai will take commissions, but Sakura always demurs. Yamato even figured out how to FaceTime for her. Seeing Kakashi, Yamato, Sai and Naruto all on one screen made her heart clench, and they all got worried when she started crying. _No, these are happy tears_ , she said. _You will always be my favourites_. Sai was the only one who smiled. Yamato and Naruto stammered, and Kakashi shrugged.

It was a few months later when Naruto called to tell her that Sasuke and Sai were to become parents. Naruto sounded so _proud_ over the phone, like Sai and Sasuke were his own family, which she supposes they are, in a way.

A month later, when the reality of their childhood friends all getting married and procreating finally hits Naruto, he declares that he is coming to Chicago to visit. It’s not a surprise. Naruto doesn’t want a family, and the kind of career he wants makes it impossible. He isn’t attracted to girls who want to settle down or are willing to take the hit to their careers. On a FaceTime call, Ino said all his girlfriends are variations of Sakura. Neither Hinata or Tenten disagreed with her statement. Inojin had started crying, and Ino went to go pick him up. Sakura told Hinata and Tenten that Naruto was visiting, and Tenten bit her lip while Hinata looked nervous. _Don’t hurt him_ , Tenten had said. _Sasuke and Sai are very on edge about him visiting_ , Hinata added.

Sakura had frowned and asked why. Hinata and Tenten looked at each other _. I think they want to protect him, and they don’t like the idea that you have to let someone make mistakes_ , Hinata said. Tenten cleared her throat _, Sai and Sasuke think Naruto is in love with you_. Sakura frowned, and was about to respond when Ino sat down with Inojin. _You slept with him when you were sixteen_ , Ino said, _he imprinted. What did you expect?_

The truth is that it had never occurred to her that Naruto was in love with her. They love each other, _sure_ , but she is pretty sure their love isn’t the kind that makes you marry and have kids. It’s the kind that keeps you warm and makes you feel fuzzy.

In other words, she is very sure that Naruto doesn’t want to put a baby in her nor does he want to get married. He is honest to fault. He would have told her first. Instead of saying this, she simply nods and says that she will do her best to avoid leading him on.

When she picked him up from the airport, Sakura had parked and walked into the terminal. She had waited, arms crossed, tapping her foot. When she had seen his blond head bobbing, she immediately relaxed. He seemed taller and broader than when she had left, but that was probably because they had never really stopped being sixteen in her head. She runs into his arms and buries her head in his shoulder. She can smell him, and Konoha. _Home is where ever someone is thinking about you_ , he had told her. If that is true, they will probably always be each other’s true home.

He sets her down, and smiles. “It feels so nice to be standing after that flight.” Naruto’s voice is deeper. He is a man now. Sakura feels a twinge that is definitely not hostile but is far from friendly. Maybe Sasuke and Sai were right to be worried.

“Is something wrong?” Naruto asks, “you have a weird look on your face.” Sakura frowns, and shakes her head.

“It’s nothing.” She smiles. “Want to go get ramen?”

“They have ramen in America?” Naruto asks, excited.

“It’s not like home, but it’s yummy.” Sakura motions to the door, and Naruto picks up his suitcase to follow her.

**

“They warned me that you are in love with me.” Sakura doesn’t have to explain who _they_ are. Naruto snorts, blowing on his noodles. They had dropped off his suitcase and left the car at her apartment before walking over to the restaurant.

The thing is that she is attracted to him. Naruto has aged well. He still has his boyish charm, but he carries himself like a real man now. She finds it distracting. Sakura can’t help but wonder if she is more of a woman to him.

“Sai and Sasuke are so nosey.” Naruto shovels noodles into his mouth. “It’s gotten worse now that they are going to be dads.” He speaks with his mouth full, just like he did at twelve and sixteen. Naruto is the most consistent member of their group. He is their rock.

“I’m happy for them.” Sakura says. Naruto nods as he swallows.

“They are fucking terrified.” He says. “Every day, there is some new thing they are obsessed with. I think they tell me about it because they know Hinata and Tenten don’t want to hear it. You know what they asked me the other day?”

“No, enlighten me.” Sakura puts noodles in her mouth.

“Well, they have really hit rock bottom and are going over doomsday scenarios. Like, what if, during birth, there is a choice between the mom and baby. It’s your baby, this little being who is an embodiment of your love, versus your partner, who you love more than anything. You have to choose who the doctors will save.” Naruto puts his chopsticks down. “Now, you think it would be easy, right? You pick your partner, and you can make a new baby. _But_ , what do you do if your partner tells you to save the baby? When it comes down to it, do you save your partner and risk them hating you for not saving your baby or do you respect your partner’s wishes and save your baby, but lose the person who made you want to be a parent in the first place?” Sakura tilts her head.

“Is this a real conversation they had?” she asks. Naruto nods.

“Yes.” He pauses. “I told them that Hinata and Tenten wouldn’t hate them, if they chose to make another baby. I don’t think they believed me.”

“What did Shikamaru say?” Sakura asked. Naruto sighed.

“Get a real problem.” Naruto picked up a piece of pork. Sakura laughed. “He then said that if it were between your partner and an unborn baby, you choose your partner. But if it’s your baby, like, a living, breathing on its own baby, you choose them over your partner. The whole being born thing is the key to the question.”

“That’s a good answer,” Sakura replies, “I agree with Shikamaru. Sai and Sasuke are just making themselves more anxious.” Naruto nods, not disagreeing.

“I think it’s different when you are in stupid love. Shikamaru and Temari are very calculating people. Tenten and Hinata have a lot of feelings, but they are good at talking about them. Sai and Sasuke are like goo, underneath it all. It’s scary, thinking you might lose the person you love the most and raise this little alien.” Naruto picks up an egg. “They are just built differently. I think Sai and Sasuke would make the same decision as Shikamaru, but they wouldn’t be very stoic. We would have to help them out.” Naruto pops the egg in his mouth. Sakura frowns.

“This is a morbid conversation.” She says. Naruto smiles.

“Now you know why they spend energy worrying about us,” he swallows his food. “The stakes are way lower.” Sakura smiles, and takes a sip of beer.

“They’re just jealous that we don’t have a kid to worry about too.” She replies. Naruto nods.

“Are they ever,” he smiles. “I am looking forward to being a fun uncle.”

“Who wouldn’t want to be an honorary Uzumaki?” Sakura asks, and Naruto slaps the table.

“That’s what I’ve been saying this _whole time_ ,” he says, “and no one takes it seriously!”

“One of those kids is going to try and move in with you,” she says, “I bet it will be Sasuke’s. He and Hinata are going to have a really stubborn kid. I can feel it in my ovaries.” Naruto cackles, drawing attention to them.

Sakura smiles and pops her egg in her mouth. She missed his obnoxious laugh most of all. As she chews, Naruto takes his first real look at her. She still wears her hair short, and those cherry barrettes are clipping her bangs back. But she wears a black turtleneck and jeans, and she has a few ear piercings. She is like one of those artsy American girls in the magazines Ino reads in the flower shop.

She still has the power to make him feel like a nervous teenager. He isn’t in love with her, but he won’t deny that she has influenced the kind of women he goes for. Pretty, smart, mercurial. Shikamaru asks him why he doesn’t just go for the real thing, and Naruto always responds with a shrug. It’s not that he is indifferent. He just knows neither will ask the other to compromise themselves for the other. What’s the point in getting the girl if he has to give up everything to do it?

Naruto wants to be Hokage. He wants to hang out with Shikamaru and watch Temari beat him up. He wants to see Sai and Sasuke become fathers, and Tenten and Hinata mothers. He wants to know everyone’s kids, and teach Sai and Sasuke’s kids everything he knows. He doesn’t want to move to America, and he won’t ask Sakura to come back to Konoha. He loves her enough to accept their differences.

But that doesn’t mean that he is blind to the way Sakura looks at him, or the spark when their hands brush. He just knows better than to imagine it is anything more than a mutual attraction.

**

When they fall together, it is raining so heavily that neither wants to go outside. They had been dancing around the issue of their mutual attraction for a few days. They stand close to each other before giving each other ridiculously wide berths. It’s frustrating. She has rubbed one out every night for the last four, and Naruto takes long showers in the morning.

Today, it all finally finds a release. Sakura comes out of the shower in her towel, wet hair hanging around her face, while Naruto sits on the couch. He looks at her, smiling. The sun settles on his face, and it makes something inside her break open and apart.

“Naruto?” she asks, and he frowns at the uncertain look on his face.

“Yeah.” He replies. She rubs her thighs together.

“How do you feel about me?” Sakura asks, feeling stupid. Naruto blinks, and tilts his head. He blushes.

How does Naruto feel about Sakura? The same way he feels about Sai and Sasuke and their unborn babies. A loyalty so intense that it borders on obsessive. An immense tenderness, so big and overwhelming that it may drown him. Feelings so big he can’t really separate and name them, but he knows that together, they mean love. The boundless kind. The sort of love that makes the universe possible. It’s what he feels for all three of them, and the squirts growing in Hinata and Tenten. He doesn’t really think it’s a secret.

But she isn’t asking him how he feels. She actually wants to know if he is attracted to her. He isn’t a dick, unlike Shikamaru or Sasuke, so he won’t correct her. He doesn’t think that answer is a secret either. Sakura is the prettiest girl he has ever seen. Has been since they were seven. She is the first girl he had sex with, and she is the woman who he looks for in every girlfriend. Naruto doesn’t think he can keep secrets, so he knows that Sakura is this way because of her own self-image. She always had problems seeing herself as desirable. That’s why she and Sasuke got together; neither could imagine being wanted by someone.

She stares at him, fidgeting. Nonetheless, she doesn’t look away, and he can tell by the look in her eyes that she wants him.

“Come here and find out,” he says quietly. He has a vulpine look on his face. She has been with other men. She knows that that look means. Not to be outdone, Sakura drops her towel and walks over to him. They say nothing to each other, but Naruto finds it hard not to stare at her body. All the things he had avoided thinking about are now in his face. Not only that, she invites his gaze. The way she walks, the curve where her waist flares into her hips, the freckle on her inner thigh that he only sees when she wears a swimsuit.

“I’m here,” she says softly, as she stands before him. He opens his arms, and she comes home. They aren’t sixteen anymore.

She puts her hand to his cheek and kisses him first. He wraps his arms around her waist and embraces her. She is softer than he thought she would be. She is fresh from the shower, but he can still smell her, despite the coconut-y smell of her conditioner. It makes his belly feel like it’s on fire.

She sighs into his mouth. Everything has always been easy between them, but Naruto’s technique has undoubtedly improved. She pulls away, to his half-lidded eyes and flushed face. “You sucked the first time we did this,” Sakura says quietly. Naruto smiles.

“Good thing it’s been awhile, then.” He kisses her, she slips her tongue in his mouth. Kissing Naruto is a lot of fun. He makes her feel desired, like she is the only woman who exists. She doesn’t know if it something he makes other women feel, and she finds that she doesn’t want to know. She wants to be the only one. It’s her fantasy.

She fiddles with the buttons of Naruto’s shirt. He pulls back and looks at her. “What are you doing?” he asks. Sakura blows air through her nose.

“I want to see you naked.” She says, and he laughs, straight from his belly.

“Here, let me help you.” Naruto takes over, and takes his shirt off while Sakura reaches for his pants.

“Whoa,” he says, “you’re impatient.”

“I feel self-conscious, being the only one naked.” Sakura pouts. Naruto throws his shirt across the room.

“You look good naked,” his smile is vulpine. It makes Sakura tingle as he pulls her closer. She kisses him again, just because she can, and he leans in.

“So how do you feel about me?” she says into his mouth. Naruto pulls away and she kisses his jaw. He is thinking of a way to answer this question in the most honest way he can. _I love you so much, my heart bursts_. It’s accurate.

“I love you, of course.” He sighs, and Sakura kisses his neck. He feels her smile against his carotid. She likes the way his pulse feels on her lips. Naruto thinks about how funny it is, that the terrible little girl, who used to make fun of him, grew into the kind of woman who drops her towel when he propositions her. Life has a sense of humour, that cruel motherfucker.

Naruto lets her kiss him for a bit, and he thinks about his next move. “Can I touch you?” he asks.

“Are you not doing that right now?” Sakura mutters. Naruto smiles.

“I meant between your legs.” He says, “I want to touch you between your legs.”

“Vulva,” she says, “you are talking about my vulva. Use the correct terms. I’m a doctor.” Well, not an official one. Not yet. Naruto laughs.

“Fine. May I touch your _vulva_ , with a focus on your _clitoris_?” Naruto kisses her shoulder, and Sakura sits up.

“You don’t have to ask like that.” He grazes over her nipple with his thumb. It makes something inside her twitch.

“Well, I tried the nice way, but you insisted on _proper terms_.” Naruto kisses the underside of her jaw. Sakura hums.

“You may.” She says, “but I don’t come during sex.” Naruto pauses, and looks up at her like she has grown two heads.

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.” Sakura replies, “no man has ever made me come. I am pretty sure I’m broken.”

“Wait, can you rub one out?” Naruto’s brow is furrowed. Sakura nods. Naruto’s eyes soften. “I don’t think your broken Sakura. I think people haven’t been touching you right.” Naruto offers her his hand. “Show me how you touch yourself. Use my hand.”

His hand it a lot bigger than her own. He has a ruddier complexion, and his hands are rough and callused. She rubs her hand against his palm, frowning. It’s not that other men haven’t tried. It’s that she hasn’t let them. In her mind, if Sasuke couldn’t do it, then no one could. But she looks up into Naruto’s eyes, and after seeing the tenderness in them, she nods. She believes in Naruto, and if he insists that she isn’t broken, they have to try.

“We can try,” she smiles, and she takes his hand in her own.

First, her hand guides his by being under it, like a cover. When he is more or less set, she lets go and wraps her arms around his neck. His hand is warm, and he is gentle, always asking if she is okay, if that was too much or too little. Her hips move against his hand, so he focuses on repeating the move that made her jerk against him.

No one has ever made her orgasm before, so she doesn’t know what to expect. It starts with a coiling in her tummy, like all the heat in her body zooms to the same spot. Sakura doesn’t really know what to do, so she asks for _more_. She feels like she is chasing something that might just get out ahead of her, and she really, _really_ doesn’t want it to get away.

She is pretty when she blushes, so Naruto obliges, going harder and faster. It almost hurts, until it pays off and he breaks through something. She gasps, and she buries her head in his shoulder as her body clenches around his hand.

Sakura starts crying. Like, full on, tears running down her face crying. At first, Naruto thinks she is laughing, until he feels her tears on his shoulder. Withdrawing his hand from her, he rubs her back.

“Hey,” he says, “are you okay?” Naruto is worried. He is pretty sure that she was asking for him to go harder, but maybe he got it wrong. He really doesn’t like it when she cries, especially when he is the cause. Sakura sits up, her eyes a vivid green from all her crying.

“I’m fine,” she wipes her face with her hands, “I just thought I was broken.”

“But you’re not.” He whispers. “You were never broken, Sakura.”

“You’re right,” she repeats. They look at each, and he wipes under her eye with his thumb. “I want more.” She says quietly, smiling. Naruto smiles, and nods.

He watches her unzip his pants, and he drums the fingers of his right hand against her thigh. “Do you have a condom?” he asks. Sakura looks up at him, and frowns to herself.

“No,” she sighs, “but I have an IUD, and I’m clean. Are you?” Naruto blushes. Ino had dragged him into the clinic before he went, and she threatened him with castration if he had sex between then and when he was with Sakura. Shikamaru and Sasuke laughed in his face when he told them of his ordeal. Sai shrugged and said Ino was trying to be a good friend. Naruto would beg to differ, but fine.

“I’m clean.” He replies, “Ino made me get tested.” Sakura sighs.

“It’s like they are plotting for us to get together.” She kisses his chin, and he smiles.

“It’s sweet.” He murmurs, as she lines them up together. It’s hard for him to focus when she holds him in her hand.

“Say when.” She jokes. He rolls his eyes.

“When.” He replies. He hisses and she sighs when they are finally together.

They sit there for a second, while she adjusts to him. She starts moving first, and Naruto lets out a quiet groan. It doesn’t feel like it did when they were sixteen and he was barely taller than she and her breasts were small. But that sense of unity, of togetherness, is still there, but stronger. Sakura feels connected, not just to Naruto, but to every memory they share, and the ones that they will make.

It’s surreal, because she can only see it clearly now: it has always been Naruto. The boy with jammy hands and crooked teeth and big, blue eyes. Who always loved her, even when she was nasty to him. The boy who had grown up alone. It was always him, who was meant to show her that she wasn’t broken.

She moves faster for him, because she wants him to feel how she did: whole. Like he was complete. She kisses him, wanting to inhale all of him so that they would never be apart again. His hands are on her hips, and while he has not even the faintest idea of how much she wants him, he knows that in this moment, where time flattens and turns in on itself, that he is going to come and she is going to join him.

She tells him to go faster, begging for more, more, more, and he gives it, until the nicest feeling blindsides him and he goes in one last time, hitting the truth that was there all along. When she remembers how to breathe, Sakura kisses Naruto without having to look for his mouth to know that her aim was true.

He wraps his arms around her waist, and pulls her down so that they lie facing each other on the couch, and she squeals on their way down, before hooking her leg over his hip and kissing him again, this time, serious.

Because she isn’t broken, and never was. That was the truth Sasuke was never able to find.

**

“Naruto!” She yells, holding a piece of peanut butter toast. “Eat this, I am going to be late!” Naruto opens his mouth, barely in time, for Sakura to stick the toast into his mouth. Wedging it in there, he licks her thumb as she withdraws her fingers from his mouth.

“Ew!” Sakura says, “I need to wash my hands.” Naruto narrows his eyes as he chews. When he finally swallows, he follows her to the kitchen.

“You put your tongue and fingers in my mouth this morning,” he says, “why is it gross now?” Sakura looks up at him.

“I have to go to work. I can’t have Naruto germs on me in a lab.” She jokes. Naruto shrugs.

“You didn’t have to hand feed me, either.” He grumbles, arms crossed, the way he does when he feels put out.

Sakura looks at him, blinking. “I thought you liked my hands in your mouth.” She says. Naruto blushes, so she continues to tease him. “You like peanut butter too, so I thought it would be a nice treat before I left for the day,” she smirks, drying her hands on her skirt.

“You’ve made your point.” He says. Sakura smiles and walks up to him, kissing his lower lip. “After work, I’m going to buy you a few jars to take home to Konoha. There is a house key on the counter.” Sakura touches his cheek, quiet. She is appreciating his face. Naruto doesn’t know how handsome he is, so he looks at her like she is losing her mind. She smiles, patting his cheek. I _’ll be home soon!_

**

They have a peaceful two weeks. They sit on her balcony, looking over the city. Naruto’s legs are crossed, while Sakura’s are bent up against her chest. They are each drinking a bottle of Stella Artois. The sunset is an orange burst, and it almost makes the hot day worth it.

She will drop Naruto off at the airport tomorrow. Each night he has been here, they have explored each other’s bodies and recounted almost every memory they share. It is going to be hard to watch him leave. Sakura looks to him, as he sips his beer.

“I came here to bring you back.” Naruto says. “But I think this is your home now.” He looks at her, and she smiles.

“Home is wherever someone is thinking of you.” She smiles. “By that logic, this is your home too.” Naruto smiles, and he taps his bottle of beer against hers.

“I’ll visit when I can,” he replies. “That’s the best part about being childless. I have money to do fun things.” Sakura smiles, and presses her leg against his.

There are five jars of peanut butter packed into his suitcase, and the next day, she promises to mail some over regularly. Then she kisses his cheek, and he is gone.

7

She has made peace with the past. Specifically, she has made peace with Sasuke. Not enough to speak to him, but enough to be over it. She has been with other men, and when Naruto visits, they always fall together. She is whole again. She doesn’t need to speak to Sasuke to know that they never properly saw the other.

Which is why she stands in the mail room, staring at the letter he sent her for a whole five minutes. The address is correct. It is his handwriting. At first, she wants to throw it out. She never wants to see him again. He doesn’t deserve her forgiveness, just because he is a parent now. It has been nearly ten years. It could re-open the wound that has only just healed.

She doesn’t have to read the letter, but she doesn’t want to throw it out either. So she hangs it on the fridge with her strongest magnet, and stares at it every day before work.

**

After months of telling herself that she doesn’t need to read the letter, Sakura comes home from work, opens a beer, and tears it open. It is a long letter. She never knew Sasuke had this many thoughts in his head. He begins with an apology for sending the letter, and the he knows that by opening it, she has agreed to relive some of the worst years of her life.

What follows is an unflinching and empathetic account of all the small and large ways he hurt her. Throwing her kindness in her face, not saying thank you or giving her access to his emotional world. That he would have killed her, and he is thankful that he didn’t, but it had been his intent and he refuses to lie to her. _Every day_ , he writes, _I look at my children and hope they will never know the pain of the guilt I carry_. He acknowledges it isn’t much, in the grand scheme of shitty things in his life, but he does think it is important for her to know that he hasn’t forgotten, even though he has a happy life now.

When she gets to the final paragraph, Sakura doesn’t expect to read what she does next. _For a long time, I acted as if I didn’t have a choice. I had to be an avenger, I had to get stronger. I had to be mean and cruel and ruthless to accomplish what I wanted in life. I couldn’t accept that life could be anything but one misery stacked upon another. I have no explanation for my behaviour, other than I used my anger and grief to justify everything. I was wrong, and I am sorry. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but you deserve the closure of knowing that I will never forgive myself, and that I will forever regret what I did. I am so, so sorry._

_Love,_

_Sasuke_

**

When she finishes her beer, Sakura decides to call Sasuke. They need to talk about their relationship. His letter was more then she had expected, and she is at the age where she ought to learn to set aside her pride. She also misses Sasuke—they had been friends, and she loves him. People you love always deserve a chance to prove themselves if they demonstrate how sorry they are.

The phone rings twice, and it’s a child’s voice. “Hello?” the voice asks. It’s a small voice. It must be his daughter, who is barely six.

“Hi,” Sakura says softly, “is Sasuke there?” Sakura hears a rustling, and voices in the background.

“Hello?” Sasuke says into the phone. His voice is deeper than she remembers, but they never talked much. He sounds like a father. He has the gruff tone of someone who protects his kids.

“It’s Sakura,” she says softly. “I just read your letter. Is this a bad time to talk?” her voice is soft. Sasuke looks to Hinata, and mouths ‘Sakura’. Hinata nods, and picks their daughter up off the ground, saying that they will go to the park.

“I’m free.” He sighs. “How are you? Naruto can’t stop talking about the Land of the Free and peanut butter.” Sakura laughs.

“He really likes that stuff.”

“He got the kids into it.” Sasuke sighs. “It’s bad. Every time they come back from his place, they keep asking for peanut butter.” Sakura hums.

“I’ll start sending some to you and Sai.” She replies. “Naruto has been asking for me for more, but I just thought he was eating it because it is more convenient than instant ramen.” Sasuke laughs.

“No, he is just obsessed with making the kids love him the most.” He pauses. “I would want Naruto as a dad, too.” For the first time, in all the years she has known him, Sasuke admits to uncertainty. It’s a development.

“I don’t know, Sasuke.” She says, “you and Sai are both pretty competent people. Naruto would forget everything important.”

“He is absent-minded.” Sasuke hums. He can’t remember the last time he and Sakura had an easy conversation. “So, the letter.”

“The letter,” she says softly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into the phone. Sakura bites her lip.

“I’m sorry too.” She replies. “I should have let you be free. I knew you didn’t want to be there, not really.” Sasuke looks out the window. The sun is shining.

“It wasn’t because of you,” he replies. “I just wasn’t where I was supposed to be. It’s no one’s fault.” He chews the inside of his cheek, and walks up to the window. He taps the glass with his pointer finger.

“I accept your apology.” Sakura says softly. “I want to be your friend again.” Sasuke sucks in his breath, and he feels something in his chest burst. He isn’t worthy of anything good that has happened to him, but Sakura’s friendship is right below his marriage to Hinata and their two children. Her friendship is right there beside Naruto’s.

“I don’t deserve it.” He replies. She smiles.

“I think you do.” She replies, “your letter was moving.”

“Hinata helped me draft it,” he says, “the words are mine, but she has been lobbying for it and editing it for _years_.”

“Years?” Sakura asked.

“I love you like Naruto.” He scuffs his foot on the floor. “The two of you deserve the best.” Sakura smiles even wider than before.

“We’re all really happy,” she says, “have you noticed?”

“Even Sai,” he says, “all he talks about is your research. He makes us all read your papers. He got mad when Naruto said he didn’t understand it.”

“He did that?” Sakura asks. Sasuke nods.

“Mhmm. Your papers are good. Naruto is just a dummy.” He smirks, “speaking of Naruto, when were you going to tell Sai that you two fuck around whenever Naruto is in Chicago? Naruto won’t tell us anything and Sai is anxious to know.”

“Why would Sai care?” Sakura asks.

“He loves you, and wants to protect you. You being far away makes it hard for him to do that, so he takes it out on Naruto.” Sasuke sighs. “We all worry about you. We just cope with it differently.”

“Why would you worry for me? I can take care of myself.” Sakura goes to lie on her bed, not bothering to turn off the light in her room.

“You’re the girl.” Sasuke looks at his fingers. “We are always going to want to protect you. It’s a guy thing.”

“I had no idea any of you felt this way about me.” Sakura is immensely flattered. She always sort of knew that they cared, but they never come out and tell her.

“Yamato puts all your postcards up on his fridge, and Kakashi always mentions how you would react to what Naruto gets up to.” Sasuke says. “He taught the kids like, five swear words the other day. Kakashi said that you would have pounded him into oblivion.”

“I’ve matured, Sasuke.” She lifts her legs up, so that they are perpendicular to the mattress. It makes her abs hurt, but she keeps it up. “I would just tell him off. It’s not worth it, he never learns.” Sasuke laughs at this, and Sakura grins at the ceiling. “So Sasuke, what’s having a family like? Hinata and the guys tell me about your kids, but I have always wondered how you felt about it.” Sasuke looks out at the clear day, and tilts his head.

“I love Hinata more than I can describe, and my children even more than that.” He croaks. The words are impossible to find. It always surprises him. “I don’t deserve them.” Sakura sighs on the phone.

“We all deserve to be happy, Sasuke.” She says quietly. “You deserve to have a family.”

“My son moves like Itachi. I can’t explain it, he is just very fluid and hyper aware of space. When our daughter was born, he was so excited. He just wanted to kiss her and stuff.” Sasuke blinks. He tries not to think about his brother’s last words _. I will always love you, no matter what._ That love has been reborn in his children, and for that, he is forever grateful. “My daughter is like Neji, before his dad died. She is really kind, and she is always patting her brother on the head and telling him she loves him. It’s kind of gross, actually. Hiashi says that’s how Hinata and Neji were with each other, before it all changed.” Sasuke feels himself choking up. “She wants to be a bird, and he wants to be a horse.”

“Itachi loved you a lot too, didn’t he?” Sakura asked. Sasuke breathes out.

“He did. It’s why he killed our family. To spare me.” Sasuke exhales. “I’m his baby brother, no matter what I do.” Sakura smiles.

“So, a bird and a horse?” she asks. “Sai’s kids are going through the same phase. The oldest says he wants to be a fish, and the youngest is going to be a lion.”

“I remember him telling me that,” Sasuke says, “apparently my daughter will be his bird friend. She will sit on his head and look out for his enemies.” Sakura snickers.

“Young love.”

“They’re children.” Sasuke rolls his eyes, “I am pretty sure Naruto’s one joy in life, besides eating peanut butter, is talking to them about the kind of animal he will be when he grows up.”

“He is going to be a fox.” Sakura says, not missing a beat. Sasuke rolls his eyes.

“That’s predictable. My son says he will be a bear, Sai’s older son says Naruto is going to be a tiger, and the two squirts say a dog. An Akita, specifically.” Sasuke says. “Their reasoning is pretty funny. The two eldest say bear and tiger because they are these fierce animals. The squirts say dog because Naruto doesn’t get along with Sai’s cat. Every family dinner, Naruto gets into it with the cat and Sai and Yamato have to pry them apart.”

“I wish I were there.” Sakura says, her heart glowing from the chaos of family dinner with Team Seven and four actual children. Hinata and Tenten are more patient then Sakura.

“Lee and Guy come too.” Sasuke says. “Lee is still dating that dick.”

“Naruto said that too.” Sakura pats her tummy. “Does Lee bring his boyfriend?”

“Nope,” Sasuke says, “Tenten banned him. She said that it’s family only, and that you are the only person missing from the table. Lee went with it.” Sakura smiles.

“I’m the only one missing?” she whispers. Sasuke nods.

“Only you.” There is a silence that hangs over them, and Sakura thinks about the one thing she wants Sasuke and Sai to know. She knows that they get worried about her and Naruto, being alone and childless. Sai hints at in every phone call.

“Naruto and I loved your children before they were born,” she whispers, “we love them so much we don’t need our own.”

“You haven’t met them.” Sasuke says quietly. He feels something warm in his tummy, and he closes his eyes.

“I don’t have to, to know. Love goes beyond space and time.” Sakura says, “and I have heard them babble on the phone with Hinata, and seen them grow over FaceTime. Oh, and all the photos Naruto sends me.” She pauses. “I can tell that you and Sai are good dads.”

“Really? Sai makes it look easy. I’m always afraid that I’m doing something wrong.” Sasuke looks around the living room, and all the toys strewn around. “I just want so much more for them. It makes me sick.”

“They want to be a horse and a bird instead of avengers. I think you are doing a good job.” Sakura smiles. She looks at the clock, and feels the beer bubble in her belly. “I need to go eat something, but I’m glad we had this talk.” Sasuke smiles on his end.

“I want to talk like this more often,” he says, “and I want to hear more about Chicago.”

“It’s mostly me researching and working with students. I occasionally go on a date.” She replies, sitting up. Sasuke shrugs.

“I want to know more about you.” He says, “the last time we were friends like this, we were thirteen.” Sakura nods.

“You should just join our FaceTime calls. I am pretty sure that’s the only time anyone else tells each other anything.” She stands up, smoothing her skirt. “I’ll tell Sai to include you.”

“Thanks,” Sasuke smiles. “I’ll feel like I really am part of the team again.” Sakura smiles.

“You always were a member of the team, even when you were gone.” Sakura pads out to her kitchen. “We just needed to end up where we were meant to be, Sasuke.” She looks in her fridge. She is just going to eat yogurt and brush her teeth. This has been an exhausting conversation, in the best way possible.

“I missed you, Sakura.” He says, “I missed you and Naruto the whole time.” She smiles on her end.

“Welcome home.” She says. He laughs, and tells her that she should visit soon. She shrugs and says _peut-être_. He says he doesn’t know what that means, and Sakura says it’s French for _perhaps_.

He tells her to stop being a mysterious woman of the world, and to come home for a visit. Sai and Naruto want to see her. She smiles, and says it went from _perhaps_ to _probably_. Sasuke laughs, and says he will go now. She nods, and says goodbye, hanging up first.

She picks up a cup of lime yogurt, and eats it with her finger instead of a spoon.

8

Naruto’s visits are something Sakura always looks forward to. She doesn’t avoid Konoha. Sakura just hates taking time off of work. Being less of a workaholic and the only other one who doesn’t have a partner or kids, Naruto finds it easy to justify the expense and time it takes to visit Sakura.

It’s his first night back, and Sakura jumped him as soon as they got back to her place. They ended up on the carpet of her living room. It went hard and fast and it was worth the months of waiting. Naruto lies flat on his back, his arm around her shoulders, while she presses herself into his side. He traces a circle on the top of her shoulder. She feels his heart beating against her. She likes these quiet moments between them.

“Naruto,” she says quietly, “I like it when it is just us. Like this.” She kisses his chest, and he sighs.

“I like it too.” He breathes.

“So, tell me how everyone else is.” She looks up at his face. He smiles, keeping his head back and face to the ceiling.

“Let me see.” He closes his eyes, trying to remember everything. “I brought pictures of the kids for you. Everyone’s happy, more or less. Sai is training Inojin in his techniques, in addition to his two kids. Tenten and he are talking about a second cat. Sasuke and Hinata are trying for number three.”

“Three?” Sakura asks, her eyes wide. She can’t imagine being pregnant, let alone having three kids.

“They are so weird,” Naruto snorts. “I swear, Hinata looks at him and he wants to put a baby in her.” Sakura scrunches her nose. She can’t imagine what Sasuke wanting to make babies would look like. Her time with him was sterile and devoid of emotional intimacy, and it would be weird for her to imagine anything else.

“Would you rather look at me and put three babies in me, or own two cats with me?” Sakura turns and gets up on her elbows. Naruto starts laughing.

“I’ll take babies over cats any day.” He sighs. “I never thought anyone would love Sai so much that they would own cats with him.”

“I didn’t even know he was a cat person until he went to Kyoto.” Sakura says. “What else have I missed?” Sakura gets up onto all fours, and swings her leg over, so that she sits on his stomach, straddling him. Naruto scrunches his face, thinking. “Kiba got married. Shino discovered a new bug. Lee still dates that asshole.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He has gotten worse with time.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.” Sakura slumps, looking down at Naruto. He likes the way she sticks against his stomach.

“He was rude to Tenten the other week and Sai nearly killed him.” Naruto looks up at her. “He told Tenten that she should act more feminine, since no man likes being told what to do. Sai sent that asshole flying.” Sakura laughs. She wishes she was there to have seen it. “Lee and Tenten didn’t talk for a week.” Naruto frowns.

“He’ll figure it out,” Sakura says, smoothing the wrinkles in Naruto’s forehead with her hand.

“Maybe.” He says, “I think Shikamaru, Sasuke and Sai are finally friends.”

“I doubt it.” Sakura says, “I can’t imagine the three of them spending time together.”

“Eh, I don’t think you give them enough credit.” Naruto puts his hands on her hips. She sighs as he massages them. “Kurenai took in Kakashi, Yamato and Guy. I think they are her projects.”

“A girl needs a project.” Sakura sighs. She likes whatever his hands are doing. She leans forward, placing a hand on either side of his head, arching her back so she too, looks up at the ceiling. Naruto takes in the tight plane of her stomach and the undersides of her breasts.

“What about Hokage?” Sakura asks on a sigh. Naruto laughs under her.

“Oh ya. That’s what I came here to tell you. My inauguration is in three months. You should come.” Sakura gasps, and moves back to look into Naruto’s eyes.

“You are going to be Hokage?”

“Yes. Lucky number seven.” Naruto smiles. Sakura leans down to kiss him, taking his face in her hands. He opens his mouth, and she slides her tongue in. When she pulls back, she smiles.

“Congratulations.” She kisses him again, and Naruto smiles.

“It matters that much to you?” Naruto puts his hands behind his head. Sakura rolls her eyes.

“Your dreams will always matter to me.” She smiles. Naruto smirks.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.” She blinks, and suddenly, she is under Naruto. He spun her so fast that she isn’t even dizzy. He kisses the side of her neck, and she hums happily.

“So, will you come back for my inauguration?” he asks. “We all miss you.” She smiles.

“Yes, I’ll come back to Konoha.” She sighs. “Naruto?”

“Yes.”

“How old were you when you realized that the only reason you exist is because two people had sex without a condom one night?” Naruto groans.

“You better still have your IUD.” He says. Sakura frowns.

“I would never play you like that, Naruto.” She says. Instead of replying, he kisses her throat in apology, prompting her to hum. She does have a related question. “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if I had stayed and we had a baby or two?” Naruto stops kissing her neck, and pulls back to look at her. His eyes are hard, and he has a troubled look on his face.

“I don’t really like thinking about it.” He says quietly. Sakura frowns, and puts her hand to his cheek.

“Why?” she asks.

“We wouldn’t have been able to be who we wanted to be, if we had kids. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved.” Naruto pauses. “I like kids, and I love our friends’ kids. I respect kids and the responsibility involved with raising them. That’s why I don’t have any.” Sakura nods.

“It’s the same for me, too.” She smiles. “You know what I like about you?”

“Other than my dick?” Sakura rolls her eyes.

“You’re poisoning our moment.”

“Fine,” he says, “what do you like about me?”

“You never hold grudges. Because of you, I feel authentically happy for how all of our lives turned out.” Sakura wraps her legs around his waist. “You are going to be the greatest Hokage of all time.”

“You think?” he asks, stars in his eyes. That mean little girl grew into the woman he loves above all else. He has always wanted her approval. Getting it makes him feel impossibly happy.

“I _know_.” She smiles, “c’mon, let’s celebrate.”

With a heave and a sigh, they form their tie, and he gives it so good she doesn’t even care about the rug burn.

9

Naruto isn’t the only man who makes her come, but being with him feels like home. They are lying in bed. Sakura is on her back, and Naruto lies between her legs, his head on her stomach. She likes the way his chin digs into her. She is giggling, and he is looking at her like she has lost her mind.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Do you think Jiraiya and Tsunade ever had sex?” Sakura laughs even harder at Naruto’s groan, but she puts her leg up to keep him from rolling off of her.

“I don’t want to think of them like that.” He scrunches his nose.

“Why? Is it because they were old when we knew them?” Sakura grins. “Are you going to stop having sex with me when we get old?”

“No!” He retorts, “I just don’t want to think about it.”

“What if I refuse to visit unless you talk about it?” Sakura grins. Naruto gives her a hard look, and sighs.

“I am going to be Hokage.” Sakura grins, knowing she has won. “You are supposed to do as I say.”

“We aren’t in Konoha.” She replies, “this is America, Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. You have no authority here.” Naruto narrows his eyes.

“You promise to book a ticket if I play this game with you?” he asks. She nods. Naruto sighs, thinking. “I think they probably did it at least once, when Tsunade was going through a rough time and needed comfort.” He presses his head into her stomach, trying to erase the image from his mind. Sakura runs her fingers through his hair, and laughs.

“I figured they were sleeping together whenever they were in the same place. Why else would she put up with him?” Naruto looks up at her, about to speak when she interrupts him. “What about Tsunade and Orochimaru?”

Naruto can’t help himself. He starts cackling into her stomach, while Sakura laughs. His hot breath tickles. “That,” he heaves, “is a timeline I don’t even want to consider.”

“Do you think he is good with his mouth? We have both seen his tongue.” She tries to move her tongue in the hungry, serpentine way Orochimaru did. Sakura laughs at the look on Naruto’s face.

“Ew. Do you get off on grossing me out?” Naruto asks. Sakura shrugs.

“It’s fun, and you make it easy.”

“Well,” he replies, “if that is the case, then she is two for two, just like you!” Naruto squeals and Sakura flips them over, and tells him to take it back, because what she and Sasuke did doesn’t count as sex, _because it was nothing like it is between you and I_.

10

It has been fourteen years since she stepped foot in Konoha. The first thing she does is make Naruto take her to his place, so they can have sex. He asks _are you sure_ , and she says _more than anything_. She is anxious, because her life is so different from everyone else’s. She regrets nothing, but she needs to do something to decompress before she is reunited with everyone.

She lies beside Naruto, and they are both breathing hard. “You know,” he says, “I have a guest room. You can stay there if you want.” He looks to her. Sakura blinks, frowning.

“Do you want me there—would it make you more comfortable?” she asks. He has never stayed in her guest room since the first time they slept together.

“I prefer to keep you close. You are always welcome here, but I don’t want you to think that I only have space for you if we sleep together. Our friendship comes first.” He puts his hands behind his head, exhaling. Sakura sits up, and smiles at him.

“Thank you, Naruto.” She rolls onto her stomach, and rests her chin on her fist so she can look at him. “I wonder what my mom would think about me making it with the sitting Hokage?” Naruto groans.

“I really don’t want to think about your mother.” He scrunches his face. “It’s worse than Orochimaru and Tsunade.” Sakura frowns, and Naruto laughs at her face. _Kidding!_

**

It shouldn’t surprise her that Sasuke is the kind of guy who has a house with a yard, but it does. It’s so domestic, for the man who swore to avenge his clan by any means necessary. She supposes he has avenged them, in a way. There is more than one Uchiha in Konoha. The heir to the clan is a boy who is as strong as his father, and he carries the blood of the main branch of the Hyuuga in his veins. His uncles are the prodigies of the Uchiha and Hyuuga. His mother developed her byakugan to be on par with Neji. If Hanabi remains unmarried, his sister is the heir to the Hyuuga.

So it’s strange seeing the beginnings of the Uchiha clan, these almost mythic characters, act like a normal family. Sasuke comes out to let them in, although Sai manages to hug Sakura first. They both look like normal dads, and all the kids, a mix of genin and chuunin, run out to greet Naruto. Sakura gives up on introducing herself, and she walks into the party. Ino leaps on her, energetic as ever. Kakashi and Yamato find her next, and they each give her an awkward hug that makes her feel like no time has passed. Tenten rubs her temples as Lee explains a new exercise he is trying, and he forces Sakura to help him demonstrate.

Kiba and Shino rescue her, and she finds herself in the corner with Shikamaru and Chouji, who are complaining about all the yard work Ino forces them to do with her. Karui and Temari are there, but they are in the kitchen with Hinata, who is pregnant with number three. Chouji wanders off to find Ino, and Shikamaru stays by Sakura.

They watch Hinata come out into the living room. She is clearly looking for someone. Her daughter, who is twelve, comes up to her. Hinata puts her hand on her daughter’s cheek. It reminds Sakura of something her mother would do. Her daughter touches her mother’s belly, and Hinata smiles, placing her hand over that of her daughter. Sakura can tell that the baby is going to kick before the girl jumps and activates her byakugan. Hinata laughs, and Sasuke and Naruto walk over.

Sasuke’s arms are crossed, but he is smiling. His daughter beams back up at him, her ponytail bobbing as she talks to her dad. Hinata says a few words, and Naruto smiles, and points over at Sakura. Caught watching, she waves her hand, and Hinata smiles. She is about to walk over when the fire alarm goes off in the kitchen, and Temari swears loudly.

“Are you going to go help?” Sakura asks Shikamaru. He sips his beer.

“No. You?” he asks. Sakura shakes her head. “You know, when we talked in that hospital all those years ago, I never thought that either of us would be willingly visiting Sasuke’s house, let alone coming here to celebrate your return to Konoha.” Shikamaru gives her a flat look. Sakura shrugs.

“I couldn’t be bitter forever.” She crosses her arms. “It would make me wrinkle.”

“I guess it’s easier when you bagged the sitting Hokage.” Sakura glares, and Shikamaru shrugs.

“No man would visit a woman that often if he wasn’t getting some.”

“What about Ino?” Sakura asks. Shikamaru rolls his eyes.

“She follows me.” He grumbles, “and Temari lets her. Apparently they work together to keep me in my place.” Sakura smiles.

“Sounds like them.” She says. Shikamaru taps his foot.

“He is really happy that you are in town.” He says. She knows he is talking about Naruto.

“I’m happy to be here.” She replies.

“No, I mean he has been in a good mood all week and is infinitely easier to handle.” Shikamaru looks to Naruto. “You should move back here. His misses you.” Sakura sighs, and crosses her arms.

“This isn’t where I’m meant to be. Naruto and I would never want to keep the other down.” Shikamaru looks at her, and she smiles. “You know, if you want me back you can simply ask, instead of using Naruto as an excuse.” Shikamaru smiles and shrugs.

“I figured I would try.” Sakura laughs, as Sai comes up behind her with his eldest son and the oldest Uchiha sibling. _I would like you two to meet my very best friend_ , he says, and the two boys look up at Sakura in wonder.

11

Sakura sits in her office, watching her student, Chloe, blow her nose as she cries. She had broken up with her boyfriend last night, and she had no family in the city, so she came to Sakura’s office hour and cried for the better part of twenty minutes.

“I just,” she says, “why didn’t he want to fight for me? Am I that disposable to him?” Chloe puts her head in her hands, and Sakura sighs.

“These things are hard.” She replies, “they are called growing pains for a reason.”

“I just love him so _much_.” Chloe can’t look up. Sakura gets out of her seat, and walks around her desk to Chloe. She gets on her knees, so she can look right into her student’s eyes. It isn’t the most professional thing to do, but her student is in pain.

“Chloe?” she asks quietly. Her student sits up, looking down at her. “When I was your age, I broke up with a boy I wanted for seven years. He just didn’t want me the way I wanted him. There was nothing I could do. It was the right thing to do, but I felt broken for a very long time.”

“It was before I moved to America. One of my friends asked about my plans, and I told him that I felt lost without my ex. He told me that I was being silly, because out of all the people in my life, my ex had never loved me the most. I was so upset that this boy didn’t love me, that I overlooked my two best friends in the world, who always believed in me. I know it feels like the end of the world when someone doesn’t love you back, but that isn’t the case.”

“My friend told me something, that I am to share it with you: _the people who love you most still love you that much, if not more._ You do not need this boy to see you to be loved. You are not disposable. You weren’t the right fit, and you did the right thing by walking away.”

Sakura takes Chloe’s hand, and runs her thumb over the knuckles. Sakura thinks of an essay about domestic violence that she read on the internet. It had this one line, that she tells herself at least once a day. _One day, this will look like a sunset_.

12

When Sasuke’s older daughter and Sai’s younger son make jounin, Sakura comes back to Konoha to celebrate. It has been three years since she was last here. She is staying with Naruto, and he decided that they should all go back to the bar where Sai asked about their happy ending. Naruto said it was only fitting, since they had all ended up where they were meant to be.

Sakura smirked, because he was under her when he said it. He still remembers things at the strangest times. Don’t worry, she fucked any thoughts of Sasuke and Sai out of him shortly after.

When they get there, Sai and Sasuke are sitting at the same booth, across from each other. Sakura takes her spot beside Sasuke, and Naruto slides in beside Sai. They had hung out with the kids yesterday, and Sasuke’s daughter still can’t believe that someone as cool as Sakura actually dated her father. That made Naruto howl and Sai chuckle. When she added that she still doesn’t know why her own mother even loves her father, Sakura cackled. Apparently Sasuke and his daughter have a strained relationship. He does his best, but they are both stubborn and willful, and she is at the age where she refuses her father’s protection just cause. It drives Sasuke up the wall, but he says nothing.

When she made that joke about him, Sasuke had shrugged and replied that he was just lucky. It was in that moment that Sakura saw the kind of father Sasuke had become. A good one. She has seen it over the years, of course. The way both Sasuke and Sai would kneel down to speak to their children, the ease with which they expressed affection and support. But seeing someone as stubborn as Sasuke refuse to take the bait, and to accept rather than crush his daughter’s spirit feels special.

Naruto drums his hands on the table, and Sakura taps her foot. Sai and Sasuke don’t fidget.

“This is the exact place where I decided to dump you, Sasuke.” Sakura decides to cut the tension by stating the obvious. They all freeze, before they start laughing. That night was so long ago, and none of them thought they would ever be able to be the same again.

They aren’t the same. No, they are better.

“If it weren’t for me, you would still have that ugly plate.” Sasuke says. Sakura tries not to giggle, for Sai. But Naruto can’t restrain himself. He guffaws.

“It was an antique.” Sai replies, in his own defense. Sasuke rolls his eyes.

“Great, so it was ugly _and_ old.” He drawls. “That is an important detail.” Sai crosses his arms and frowns. He and Sasuke don’t really get along, but Sakura has to admit that the way they express their numerous disagreements is funny. It’s their thing.

“So,” Sakura cuts in, “how have you two been? We don’t talk as much as we should.”

“Anbu is the same, more or less,” Sai replies. Sasuke nods.

“The kids are alright. They all got their big promotions, so they think they are grown-ups or something.” Sasuke grumbles. His two oldest kids have his will and Hinata’s heart. They are both formidable. Sakura thinks that he wasn’t ready for them to grow up as quickly as they did.

“Thanks for delaying their promotions.” Sai says to Naruto.

“No problem.” Naruto picks up a menu. Sakura blinks, before pinning Sai with a look.

“Delaying their promotions?” her voice lowers to a deadly register, but Sai merely blinks.

“Sasuke and I didn’t want them to make jounin until they were at least sixteen.” He shrugs, “Tenten and Hinata didn’t disagree.” Sai is unexpectedly protective of their children.

“Why?” Sakura asks. If her parents had capped her development, she would be pissed. Sasuke pins her with a look.

“It’s different when it’s your baby.” He frowns, “Sai and I never really had childhoods, and neither did Neji. We didn’t want the kids to…”

“To be weaponized so early.” Sai finishes his thought. “Seventeen is still young, and Neji got his promotion at fifteen, but we wanted something different for them.” Sai takes a sip of his beer. Sasuke nods.

“It’s bad enough that they insisted on being ninjas.” He drawls, “I was really hoping one of them would be a lawyer or a doctor.”

“Your daughter is an excellent baker,” Sai says, and Naruto nods.

“That is a totally respectable profession,” Naruto adds. Sakura feels like she has stepped into an episode of _The Twilight Zone_. Since when did these three envision life without being a ninja?

“Why not ninja? You put them in the academy.” Sakura crosses her arms. Sai shrugs.

“It’s what they wanted, and if that is the career you want, you have to start early.” Sai says. Sasuke nods.

“It’s not like the two of us are in a position to disapprove. Besides, Hanabi refuses to have kids, so like it or not my kids are going to be clan heads.” Sasuke drums his fingers on the table. “Well, except the Shrimp.” The Shrimp is their nick name for Sasuke’s youngest, a little girl. She is at the stage where kids toddle around and explore the world with their mouths. She is so cute that when she bit Naruto, he wasn’t even a little mad.

“Aw, the Shrimp is cute.” Naruto says, “great comedic timing too. One time, she puked on Sasuke right after her sister told him to go to hell when he told her to stop sneaking around with Sai’s youngest.” Naruto’s face falls, and then beams. “Oh, _that’s_ what I forgot to tell you. Guess what Sasuke and Sai found their kids doing?” Naruto wiggles his eyebrows, and Sakura guffaws. Sasuke frowns and crosses his arms, while Sai turns pink. “They came home from a mission, and Sasuke’s daughter and Sai’s younger son were in the back of Tenten’s car…”

“Naruto!” Sasuke’s voice is sharp. Sakura cackles.

“Why are you two so uptight about it? They are seventeen.” Sakura looks to Naruto, who has a big, shit-eating grin.

“Oh, I’m not finished. So, I guess they leapt apart or whatever, and the condom got _lost_.” Naruto laughs to himself. Sakura scrunches her face.

“Lost?”

“Lost. They couldn’t find it in the car.” Naruto says. “I only know this because I had to pick up the Shrimp from school while Sai covered for them and Sasuke took them to the hospital. Sai’s kid even held her hand the whole time, with Sasuke there glowering.” Naruto laughs to himself, while Sai and Sasuke both look like they swallowed a lemon.

“Aw,” Sakura says, “that’s sweet, You two raised kids who fell in love.” Sai shrugs and Sasuke sips his beer.

“I would have preferred to have never have known that they were sexually active,” Sai replies. Sasuke nods.

“They didn’t tell Hinata or Tenten either.” Naruto rubs his hands, revelling in the chaos. Sakura smirks.

“You two can lie to your wives?”

“It was by omission.” Sai is matter-of-fact. “Besides, I was trying to assassinate Sasuke at their age. I have no moral authority.”

“The kids can do math.” Sasuke says, “we weren’t that much older when we had them. How are we supposed to sit through Tenten and Hinata talking about using protection when we weren’t vigilant?” He rubs his forehead. Sai nods in agreement. Sakura and Naruto exchange knowing smiles. Sasuke catches them, and he frowns. “Whatever,” Sasuke says, “hopefully the Shrimp won’t betray me.”

“Growing up isn’t betrayal.” Sakura says, looking at her nails. “It just happens.”

“The Shrimp is special,” Naruto says, “I can tell. She has the byakugan in one eye and the sharinngan in the other. I probably won’t be able to justify holding her back.” Naruto looks at Sasuke. “Your kids are all talented, but the Shrimp is marked for greatness.” Sakura is struck by how…wise Naruto sounds.

“Thanks, Hokage,” Sasuke drawls, adding some much needed levity. “Have any other prophecies you would like to share?” Naruto puffs his cheeks, and they all look at him expectantly.

“No, not really,” Naruto replies, “we’re all where we are supposed to be. There isn’t anything left to say.” It’s true. They finally found the happy ending.

13

As the years flow by, Sakura never regrets leaving Konoha. She can always go back. Team Seven, including Sasuke, came out to visit, and Yamato stared at all the buildings while Naruto dragged them to all sorts of restaurants. It had been nice. They all camped out in her living room, and it felt like old times. She introduced them all to the concept of s’mores, which they all liked enough. Well, Naruto gobbled down a million. It was kind of gross, actually.

Naruto bragged all about Sasuke and Sai’s kids, and had brought recent pictures of all of them. He boasted that the Shrimp was even better than Sasuke had been at her age. _The Shrimp is a real genius_ , he had said, beaming with pride. He added that Sai’s elder son had been recruited to Anbu. Sasuke’s son had figured out a whole new jutsu. Sai’s younger son and Sasuke’s older daughter are an official item, Naruto caught them holding hands in public. Sasuke grumbled that they had all known since the condom incident, but Naruto crossed his arms and insisted that it’s only official when you hold hands in public. _You two should know_ , Naruto said, _eventually Tenten and Hinata let you two touch them in public, and that’s way different than when it’s just you two_. Sai made a face, and Sasuke smirked and replied _is it ever_. Naruto glared, before remembering the last piece of news.

Oh, and Sai’s cat died. That was a bummer. But they got another one, who is way nicer than her predecessor. Sai replied that the previous cat liked Naruto until he manhandled her. He had frowned in response, and insisted that Sai couldn’t see the truth of his cat’s inner darkness. Sai countered that Naruto needed to work on needing everyone to like him. It had nearly started a brawl, and Sakura got to yell at them, which was therapeutic even though they were all pushing forty and Yamato and Kakashi were both over fifty. It’s probably why all five of them came to Chicago.

Sakura won’t admit it, but she gets lonely sometimes.

A year later, there is knock on her door. Sakura goes to the door, and opens it to a slim, young man with blond hair, cornflower blue eyes and an American smile. Inojin sticks his chin out just like his mother. He smiles, hands in his pockets, a backpack on his shoulders and a suitcase at his side. There is a gold chain on his neck.

“I’m Inojin. My mother said I could stay here a bit while I figured some things out.” Inojin takes his right hand out of his pockets, and Sakura smiles when she sees a familiar silver ring on his pointer finger. She rubs her thumb on the crest, wondering if Shikamaru will have a permanent strip of pale skin around his finger.

“Of course,” she replies, “come in. I already prepared the guest room.”

The thing with home is that when you leave to find a new one, the old one will wait for you. Home longs for you as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Thanks for all the patience. I appreciate it. 
> 
> Sakura's favourite book is "The Lover" by Marguerite Duras. Shakespeare's Hamlet is the play Sakura quotes at her sandwich. The logic of "not that bad" is something I discovered in Roxane Gay's introduction to "Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture". The line "one day it will look like a sunset" is from "It Will Look Like a Sunset" by Kelly Sundberg, published on Guernica. The last two works have content dealing with sexual and domestic violence. 
> 
> Here it is. Stay safe in the age of COVID, and feel free to leave a comment!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this is a four part series. The chapters are all simultaneously, so as you read them, keep in mind that these events are all happening at the same time. I am sure there are probably a few typos; I will probably come around and make minor changes. If there is anything glaring, please feel free to tell me. I managed to put the first three sections up together, and I plan to have the fourth done this summer. I would love to hear any feedback, but also, don't feel obligated. I am content to howl into the void. 
> 
> There are three works that are quoted. In the first chapter, there is line from Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City", and a quote from Kathy Acker's Don Quixote. The second chapter has a line from Pablo Neruda's poem, "Always".
> 
> Chapter one is a love letter to the friends who stuck by me during a dark period of my life (which informed James' character). Comparative genocide studies is a real field of research; while there are no depictions of it in the story, I put up a content warning for the reference alone.


End file.
